Icarus
by notmanos
Summary: With Xavier and Scott out of the picture perhaps permanently Logan finds himself in charge of an ad hoc XMen team struggling to save Rogue & Saddiq from the Organization. But it turns out to be a much harder prospect than they expected.
1. Part 1

ICARUS 

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_Disclaimer: The character of Wolverine the X Men is owned by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Comics. No copyright infringement intended. The characters of Angel are owned by 20th Century Fox and Mutant Enemy. Bob and his crew are all mine. Hands off._

_N.B.: Takes place shortly after "X2", and directly after "Exit Wounds"._

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1

You knew your life was out of control when you went to bed at sunrise, and got up after sunset. Well, maybe not if you were a vampire, but Brendan wasn't. Still, he was a vampire hunter, wasn't he? It was probably a good thing that he fell into the natural habits of his enemy, learn to think like they thought. Or at least he was pretty sure that's what Logan would have said.

He knew he'd slept through something kind of major, but he had no idea what. After showering, he nuked a breakfast burrito and wolfed it down while watching The Simpsons and trying to interpret Alejandro's note.

Ali's parents were doctors down in Ojai, and you could tell by his handwriting, which was so generally atrocious that it could have been just the random scribblings of a spastic three year old, or some obscure demon graffiti. He thought he could make out Helga's name on the post-it, so as soon as he was finished eating, and there was a commercial, he called the Way Station, but Lau answered the phone. Helga wasn't there, and he had no idea if she had called him at all, so basically that was a waste of time. He finished the show, and his morning/evening can of Red Bull, and grabbed his weapons before heading out.

It was corny, but he felt he needed a utility belt. Right now, he was using a coat with lots of inside pockets to hold his vials of holy water and his stakes, with an emergency knife in his back pocket (no big deal on its own, but he had Rags bless it, so it stung vamps as much as holy water - which was also blessed by Rags. It was convenient knowing a high priest of something), but the weather was just getting too warm to wear the coat all the time. Could you just buy belts like that, or did you have to make your own? He wasn't great at crafts.

But what was he saying? This was Los Angeles - if such a thing was available anywhere, it would be here. He could probably get it in faux leopard fur if he wanted.

The sun wasn't completely down, but close enough for all the bloodsuckers to get active. The wedge of sky visible through the skyscrapers was a bloody crimson shot through with orange, pretty if you didn't know pollution was the cause, and heat radiated up from the pavement like he was in the world's largest stove. He'd hardly walked two blocks before he wanted to shuck the coat, but of course he couldn't.

Brendan headed for the nearest cemetery, this one called Westfield, and he let his demon side emerge before he attempted to scale the back wall. He always fought vampires in his spiky teal demon face, as it just wouldn't do for them to know what he looked like in Human guise. Yeah, they could tell him by smell if they were really observant, but he didn't intend to make it easy on them on the off chance they got away from him. Besides, he was stronger as a demon - it was his one truly useful skill.

He easily scaled the stone wall and dropped onto the far Southeastern side of the grounds, the neglected end of the cemetery. Oh, the groundskeepers got here eventually, clearing away the weeds and straightening up the fallen headstones, but no one seemed to notice a disturbed grave or two, or perhaps a missing corpse. It was always amazing what people could learn to ignore.

How they managed to ignore a few mausoleums and crypts that appeared to be lived in - up to and including at least one that had a secret tunnel that cut straight into the sewer line beneath the city - he had no idea. That was a special level of denial that he couldn't quite fathom.

The front part of the cemetery looked neater, more refined, while this part had the slightly seedy air of a horror movie set. Huge trees seemed to make up a secondary fence - Mountain ash? Pines? He couldn't really say; he was a city boy, and he just didn't know his trees - and cast huge swaths of shadows, covering smaller mausoleums, and allowing vampiric movement even now. He could see some around the mausoleum he was especially worried about, the one that cut into the sewer line, and moved to the shadows, hoping to sneak up, while he quietly pulled out a stake and a vial of holy water. The vials were actually recycled, stoppered crack pipes and vials, for the simple reason that they were often thin and fragile, easy to break, which is what he needed. Most cases, you needed to get up close to a vamp to splash holy water on them; with these babies, he could fling it from a distance. Also, you could find these things discarded all over the bad parts of town, and L.A. had an awful lot of bad parts - not just in movies either.

He could see two vamps in the shadows, both men, both kind of big. But the closest one had his back to him, and just like normal, if they did smell him, all they caught was demon and didn't worry about it. Still, the guy closest to him started to turn, as if he'd heard something or became suspicious of the smell, so he had to move fast. Brendan buried the stake in the vamp's back before he could complete his turn, and lobbed the glass grenade of holy water at his friend.

The vamp he staked exploded into dust a millisecond before the vial shattered on the chest of his friend, splattering his face and upper body with holy water. He glared at him, enraged, before he realized the smell of burning flesh was coming from him. He stared at the smoke like he could stop it that way, and then ran off snarling, partly in anger and partly in pain.

Too easy. He knew he couldn't afford to get cocky, but honestly, he was good at his job. And frankly, he loved it. Now if only he could get paid for it.

The cracked marble door of the mausoleum was ajar, so he nudged it open with his foot and lobbed in another vial of holy water as a sort of room clearer before shoving the heavy door all the way open. It was a waste of good holy water, as the room seemed dusty and empty, save for what looked like a marble coffin in the center of the mausoleum. Its marble lid was in a dozen separate pieces on the floor, and whatever was left in there looked like just a pile of dusty rags. Was the occupant a vampire? Did they rise and throw their coffin open however many years ago?

"Now what kinda demon are you, little boy?" A female voice drawled, startling him.

He still had his stake ready, and he reached into his pocket for another vial. She was standing on the far side of the mausoleum, in a pocket of shadows by the entrance to the tunnels leading to the sewer, and she was so pretty that he couldn't help but pause. She had rich, soft red hair falling around a delicate face, her lips a slash of blood red against her pale skin, long lashes framing eyes a cornflower blue. She was dressed in skintight black leather pants and boots, and a green silk tank top that was pulled tight over her breasts, like it was a size too small. Not only was she a hell of a lot prettier than your average vamp, but something about her looked almost … familiar. Had he seen her in a movie before?

Somebody clubbed him on the back of the head. He hadn't even heard them, or smelled them; he just felt the impact, a dull pain that caused lights to explode in front of his eyes before being followed by their negative counterparts, little black motes that seemed to pulse with his heartbeat, and before he hit the floor, he felt himself caught. Cold, strong hands pinion his arms behind his back, pulled him up so he was on his knees, and someone grabbed his hair hard and pulled his head up at a painful angle. He wanted to be unconscious, but no such luck.

His vision returned gradually as she sashayed over to him, and even if he wasn't aware of the shadows around him coalescing into vampires, he knew fighting was kind of useless at this point. This whole thing had been a trap - and chump that he was, he swallowed it whole. (Damn it - why didn't it occur to him it was too easy? Because it usually was?) Still, he tensed his arms, tried to judge the strength of the vamps holding him, and they were disconcertingly strong. Not only that, but with his head held firmly and his legs pinned beneath him, he was effectively helpless. There were simply too many of them holding him down; he couldn't overpower them.

He could feel blood trickling down his face, leaking from a cut on his scalp, and she reached out a blue painted fingernail and caught a bit of it. She then sucked on her fingertip, but only for a moment - she soon made a sour face and spit out what little blood she'd taken from him. "Eww! Bitter! So you're not an edible kind of demon, are you?" She didn't know what he was? Well then, he wasn't about to tell her.

"He's a half-breed," a vampire holding him down snarled. He had breath like a slaughterhouse dumpster. "He has a Human reek about him."

"Me? Have you guys smelled yourselves recently? You're worse than the sewers." Why he was trying to quip he had no idea. Denial, perhaps. This wasn't going to be it, was it? After all he'd been through, these parasites weren't actually going to get the better of him, were they? He wasn't actually going to die here, was he? It seemed unreal somehow; he couldn't wrap his head around the concept. He just wanted to ask rhetorical questions until he annoyed them - or maybe himself - to death.

Still, they ignored his defiance, perhaps because it was expected. The woman stroked what hair he had that wasn't being pulled back by some dildo, and now he was sure he had seen her before. A '70's film, maybe? Horror or porn? He couldn't remember, but he figured it didn't matter. Is that what happened to some washed up actresses in this town - they joined the undead? It seemed like a lateral career move, but honestly, it was probably better than doing boat shows with David Hasselhoff. "We don't like our kind getting killed," she purred, letting her fingernails sink in. "Especially not by some half-breed mongrel like you."

"Fair enough. So is this where you beat the shit out of me?"

"Oh, I bet you wish that were so," she said, and suddenly assumed her vamp face, eyes turning yellow, jagged teeth erupting in her generous mouth. "But we play for keeps, honey pie."

She grabbed his head, and he knew suddenly what she was going to do the millisecond before she wrenched his head sharply to one side, and he heard the sickening crack of his own neck being broken.

2

Some kind of digital cacophony woke him up - it sounded like an alarm clock having a seizure - although as Piotr groggily woke up, he thought it sounded something like "Living La Vida Loca". Whoever invented custom pop song ringtones should be dragged out back, beaten, and possibly hung upside down by their ankles while being forced to watch "The Simple Life". That would teach them.

As he sat up, he considered going metal and pulverizing the tiny cell phone on the table beside him, but he remembered it was Clarissa's, and she might resent him. Piotr looked around, wondering what the hell had happened.

He fell asleep while drawing? He had; the sketch he was working on, a classical still life, was only partially done. There was the bowl, and the ghostly half penciling of a pitcher, its mouth floating in space without a body or a base. Looking around, he saw the students who had joined him in art class were all asleep - some on the long tables, some on the floor, having clearly fallen off their chairs. The cell phone had only woken him up, perhaps because it was beside his head, or because Ricky Martin music always made him want to punch something.

He stood up, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and decided to see if anyone else had been effected.

It couldn't have been gas, could it? He didn't smell any, and he didn't feel ill, just kind of sleepy. A strange mutant power? Did anyone around here have the ability to put people to sleep? He hadn't heard of anyone like that, but maybe there was a new student who could. Of course, a telepath always could; they could send out a big "Sleep!" command, and everyone would. But there was no one here powerful enough to effect the entire school, except Xavier.

Xavier …?

No, that made no sense - why would he do such a thing?

In the hall, he found more sleeping bodies, some people snoring, others collapsed on top of each other like they were tackled, or at the bottom of a rugby scrum gone horribly wrong. He peeked in open doors, and found more of the same. He had to step carefully so as not to tread on anyone, and the whole thing was almost unbearably eerie. It was like being the last man on earth. "Hello?" he asked, wondering if it would wake anyone up. It didn't , at least not that he could immediately tell.

It was a clear walk to the Professor's office, and he looked inside hopefully. "Professor?" But the study was empty, with the only signs of life belonging to the light on his answering machine, which blinked due to new messages. He checked behind the desk in case he had fallen, but he wasn't here. Where could he be?

Piotr checked his room, his library, the lounge area, to no avail. That left the possibility that he was gone, or he was downstairs, and he took the elevator down to confirm his suspicion one way or the other.

It was actually worse downstairs. The stainless steel hallways usually seemed cold and empty, as sterile as an operating room, but he felt so impossibly alone right now he wanted to go back upstairs and retrieve Clarissa's cell phone, just so he could have someone to talk to. He didn't know who he'd call, but even the guy at the Pizza Paradise would be okay for the moment. Just the voice of another Human would be welcome in all this emptiness.

"Professor?" he asked, hearing his voice echo, rebound off the metal walls. He wanted to go metal just out of basic fear, which was stupid, but there was no one here to comment on it, so he went ahead and did it. It always felt weird when he did it, he lost all tactile sensation and felt just a bit cold, although Ms. Grey had suggested that last bit was psychosomatic. Maybe it was; maybe he just assumed he would be cold being covered in steel.

When he came around a bend in the hall, he saw the door to Cerebro was wide open. "Professor? Are you in there?" Again his voice echoed, worse this time because of what a large, empty chamber Cerebro was.

He didn't see the body until he was a meter from the doorway. "Professor!" He raced to his side, dropping to his knees and shedding the metal so he could feel for a pulse. It took him a moment to find one, but he did; still, it was thready and weak, and his breathing was shallow and labored. He pried open one of his eyelids to have a look at the pupil - he had taken some basic medical courses, mainly just to give himself something to do that might have practical applications someday - but his eyes were rolled back, showing only white. A quick search for his chair showed it was at the bottom of Cerebro, a broken wreck.

At least he knew what had happened now. The school had been attacked, and while the rest of them were put to sleep, Xavier was assaulted. But who could hurt the Professor like this? Who could even sneak up on him?

And what the hell was he supposed to do now?

* * *

Logan could feel the weight of the entire world as he climbed the staircase up to Srina's flat, and knew that he had had way too many long nights/mornings in a row, with far too many serious injuries. But at least his face had grown back, more or less. Some of the stubble was even growing back, although it would be a few hours before it matched the undamaged side of his face. He was hoping he could get in and shave the other half of his face, try and even it up before Srina noticed, but even if he got away with that, she would notice. Women in general seemed to be more detail oriented than men, but when that woman was a professional thief, a breed whose survival depended on noticing when the slightest thing was amiss, you were pretty much screwed. He had no hope of getting anything past her, unless she decided she just didn't want to see it. And lately she hadn't embraced denial as a lifestyle choice.

This time he heard the Dandy Warhols leaking from her flat, and he made sure to rattle his keys very loudly, in hopes she would open the door for him. She did, but it took a moment, and before she opened the door, he caught a very strong scent of rum and coke. She never drank this early, so she must have still been up from last night. That made his gut twist in anxiety, as he was sure that meant something was horribly wrong.

She almost fell against the door once she opened it, suggesting she was at a nearly comical level of intoxication. "Wow, you're in one piece," she slurred, reaching out and grabbing his shoulder. He grabbed her arm and helped hold her steady as he came inside and shut the door. She looked like she needed the help. "I thought you'd be waitin' for a limb to grow back."

"Did it make the news?"

"Did what make the what?" She moved backwards and stumbled, but he managed to steer her towards the sofa, and sat down heavily beside her. She sagged against him, nuzzling her head against his neck. "I jus' assumed you were out gettin' gutted again. 'Specially when you didn't show up at the pub."

"Oh shit, I forgot." And he had. He had told her he'd meet her at the corner pub for a drink tonight - last night - to make up for yesterday. Er, the day before. "I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you tonight, okay? We'll hit that Indonesian place you love so much. Assuming you're not too hung over to eat."

"Hung over? I'm not drunk." She paused briefly. "Okay, that's a lie."

He nudged the coffee table with his foot, making the two empty bottles of rum and the crystal tumbler with the quarter inch of dark liquid in it rattle. "I was about to say."

Looking at the table, though, he saw there was a book on it he hadn't seen before, a new one by Haruki Murakami. "Hey, what's that?"

She followed his glance with her glazed eyes, then rested her head on his shoulder once more, as if it was too heavy for her to hold up any longer without assistance. "Yeah, I saw that downstairs today in the shop, it just came in. I thought you read his stuff, an' decided I'd get you a present. You do like him, right?"

"Yes, he's one of my favorites. Thank you." He felt terrible now - he stood her up inadvertently, she'd bought him a gift - but then everything that was wrong with this scenario sunk in. She had stayed up all night drinking, waiting for him to come back; she had exchanged the sunny Delays disk for the more melancholy Dandy Warhols one; she was draped all over him, but not in a sexually aggressive manner, which was kind of typical for her; she had _bought him _something, not taken it her usual 'five finger discount' way. Oh shit.

He pushed her back just a little, so he could look her straight into her foxglove hued eyes. "Sri, are you about to dump me?"


	2. Part 2

He couldn't read her expression, but then again, she was too drunk to have any right now. "I wouldn't say dump. I was gonna use that "I need my space" shit on you."

He groaned and let his head fall back against the couch so he could stare up at the ceiling. His feelings were conflicted, to say the least. He had been intending to put some distance between them if only to spare her any more pain - after all, getting close to him was a recipe for early death. So she moved first, he should be fine with that. And he knew he probably deserved to get the heave ho - after all, he'd inadvertently stood her up, and when he did bother to show up, he always staggered in late with blood on his clothes. He would hardly win "boyfriend of the year".

But he did care for Srina, very much so, and this stung.

She patted his chest, and tried not to lean into him, but it was clearly difficult. "Lissen, love, it's nothing personal. I still like you; you're still great in the sack. But I ... I'm a coward."

"You are not a coward."

"Fuck you! Course I am. I've spent my whole life avoidin' shit - hell, my mutation is all about avoidin' shit. I don't like confrontation, I'm more British than I will admit, I guess, and I just ... I'm not good wit' it."

He closed his eyes and nodded, trying to swallow back his feelings. This was good; this was best for everyone. Just let it happen and let it go. "That's a myth, you know."

"What is?"

"The British being non-confrontational. Some of the rowdiest people and best fighters I know are British. You just don't brag about it like Americans."

She slapped his chest, but very lightly; it was almost like she missed, even from this extremely close range. "Don't you dare go bustin' a perfectly good cultural stereotype on me when I need it."

"Sorry." He slid his arm around her and hugged her to him, mainly to spare her the embarrassment of collapsing face first against him. "It's my lifestyle, isn't it?"

She sagged against him, all warmth and the smell of rum. "I like you, Logan, enough that it scares me shitless. But I can't live in your world. I've tried, you know, but that whole Mirror Lake thing ..." she shuddered, buried her face in his neck. "We coulda died, or worse yet, been captured or somethin'. And do you know what they did to you?"

"They do that to me a lot, from what I understand." He didn't remember any of it - that hypersonic pulse really scrambled his already messed up brain - but he knew from what Helga had told them that they had found him in one of those tanks again, a water coffin where they liked to do interesting things to him. But it wasn't clear what, if anything, had been done. They probably hadn't had the time.

"It's horrible, Logan. And on top of everything they've already done to you. How do you live with it?"

A good question; one he didn't want to look at. "I dunno. I just hafta, I guess."

"I wish I could heal like you," she sighed, her breath warm on his throat. He had a feeling she didn't mean physically. "Look, I don't want this to be the end forever ... I just need a little time, y'know?"

"I understand."

She looked up at him, clearly suspicious. "Yer takin' this too damn well. You were gonna dump me, weren't ya, ya fucker?"

"No." Shit! This was exactly what he meant by her noticing the little details. "But I was … uh, gonna have to return to New York. Xavier wants me for somethin'." What a fucking liar he was. But at least it sounded reasonably plausible, and it wasn't something she would check.

She studied his face for a moment, but was too drunk to tell if he was lying or not. She grunted noncommittally, and let her head fall back on his shoulder. "When you leavin'?"

"Tonight." He figured he could clean up and get some sleep, then get a move on. Should he actually go to New York, or just head back to Canada, which was what he was planning to do. Why he had no idea, but he was pretty sure the rent was still paid on Yasha's place, and it sounded like a good place to hole up alone and brood, lick his wounds. But should he do that? Even he was getting sick of himself doing that. He'd seen the bottom of too many damn bottles, and the worst part was, he never felt a single bit of that alcohol.

"So soon?"

"Yeah. Although, I might be able to stay one more night, if you like."

She thought about it a moment before shaking her head. "If I'm sober, I might change my mind."

He kissed her on the top of the head, and he wondered if he ever would see her again. He hoped so. He was so accustomed to having her in his life, he couldn't imagine it without her.

* * *

The pub was called The Stag and Ram, and looked as dark and grotty as something in its name seemed to suggest. Walking into it was like walking into a very deep cave, the only light belonging to the neon signs and a video game in the corner, and you could barely see those through the thick haze of cigarette smoke. You wouldn't know it wasn't even sunset yet - in here, it was perpetual night.

He saw the man he was looking for in the darkest table in the darkest corner, and yet he was still wearing black sunglasses, his brown hair pulled back in a small and modest ponytail. For a neighborhood pub he was also dressed rather nice, with a suit jacket over a black t-shirt and jeans. He looked even more like that guy from La Femme Nikita dressed that way.

Logan got a pint of bitter from the blousy blonde bartender who wore so much make up she looked like a relative of Divine's, and wandered over to his table. He was nursing a pint himself, and there was a small plate shoved to the side; from the smell, it used to contain a shepherd's pie. "Shouldn't a defender of Britain being hanging out with a better crowd?" He asked, sitting in the chair across from him.

Meldane glared at him from over his sunglasses. "You know that's bullshit, right? I thought you knew better than to trust a vampire."

"Oh, yeah. But judging from Giles's reaction - or lack of same - I figured it was not only true, but he knew about it. I bet Ruby didn't. I wonder how she'd felt if we told her about it."

The glare continued, and it remained unconvincing. "How did you find me?"

"Giles. Asked him where you'd probably be." He didn't bother to tell him that Giles had actually contacted him; it seemed that his witch friend had something for him, something that she had said he would want to see. It was just an address for a pub in Dublin, Ireland, and Giles claimed he had no idea what it was about, but he trusted her. And she had saved their lives, so he supposed that proved she was one of the good guys. But why the address of a pub he'd never heard of Dublin? Could he find some trace of Spider there?

Meldane grunted and looked down at the rest of his beer like it might help. "So what exactly did he tell you about me?"

"Nothing really. He thought it would be better for you to tell me yourself."

Again with the grunt that could have meant anything. Still, he slumped back in his chair, and said, "I can't actually tell you, you know. Giles can't either, not if he's still adhering to Watchers' Council secrecy - and why he is I have no idea, but he's kind of an odd duck. Let's just say that … I was born of magic. Quite literally, in fact; it ran in my veins like blood. But I wasn't … I wasn't very good with it. Let's just I say I learned how to run before I learned how to walk, and I fucked up a lot. Big time. Wasn't always the nicest guy on the planet. Then one day I got into a scrap with some beings who actually knew what they were doing, and could stand up to me. When I woke up from my coma, most of my powers were gone. I knew, if I was ever going to gain them back, I would have to change my ways, and maybe, y'know, _not _be evil. It's been a slow process, but I'm gaining them back a little at a time."

"So you're not Human?"

"No, I am … kind of. Hard to explain. Let's just say half Human."

"And half magic?"

He considered that a moment before nodding. "Yeah, pretty much."

Logan couldn't help but scoff. " And how the hell does that work?"

He rolled his shoulders in an unconcerned shrug. "Damned if I know. Ask my mother."

"Morgan Le Fay, right?"

Meldane scowled at him. "You should know by now you can't possibly believe everything you read."

"Oh, come on, bub. I can tell I've struck a nerve."

"You struck a nerve only because I'm tired of people saying that. They're absolutely wrong, and … well, frankly, that whole thing was fucked. Women are always the evil duplicitous ones, aren't they? And kings always noble. Jesus, has _anyone_ paid attention to royal families? Noble my ass; they're inbred, power hungry dictators in fancy clothes."

Logan sipped his beer and pondered this. It could have been that Meldane was bullshitting him, but he seemed to genuinely have his knickers in a twist over this, like saying he was Morgan Le Fay's son was some grand insult. This had to be a whole bunch of shit, but it was kind of nice to distract himself from getting dumped. "Who does that leave exactly? Guinevere?"

"Why do you assume my mother was the Human one?"

That almost made him spit out his beer. Once he choked it down, he said, "Are you saying you're the son of Merlin?"

"His name was Myrddin, and I'm not claiming any such thing. Just drop it, okay? What do you want?"

"Want?"

"You're not here to hear my life story. You want something from me. So spare me the agony of foreplay and just get it over with."

He wasn't the best wizard in the world, but he was perceptive when he set his mind to it. Of course, he also just wanted him to go the fuck away and not question him about his parentage anymore, but he could almost respect that. He didn't like getting grilled either. "A teleportation spell is no big deal, is it?"

This led him to sigh and gulp down his beer before bothering to reply. "I am not a taxi service"

"I know, but I thought you'd be agreeable to getting me the fuck out of London as soon as possible."

He stared at him across the table for a very long moment, and then, grimacing at how easily he had been manipulated into this, asked, "Where do you want to go?"

Sometimes being an asshole really paid off.

3

Brendan hadn't expected to wake up ever again, so the fact that he did was beyond shocking.

His neck hurt badly, and his first thought - after the one insisting he should be dead - was that maybe Traci Lords just paralyzed him. But he had already unconsciously pushed himself up to his hands and knees, so no, that wasn't it. What the hell had happened to him? Why wasn't he dead?

Thanks to his stupid and otherwise useless eidetic memory, he remembered Yasha, Logan's vamp girlfriend, telling him that Brachens were hard to kill. And had Rags had said something about Brachens having extra bones in the neck, but sometimes it was hard to understand him, what with that inscrutable accent of his. Did that mean a broken neck wasn't enough to kill him? Boy, he had lucked out.

He sat up, trying to let his aches and pains work themselves out before attempting to stand. She and her horde were gone, which was another good thing for him, but he wondered how long he had been out. When he left the mausoleum, it was dark, but it had been basically dark when he came in, so it was no help at all.

Maybe this was a sign. Helga had always insisted he was going to get himself killed, and he almost had, so he wasn't about to mention this to her. He had enough "I told you so" happy dances to last him a lifetime.

He decided maybe he should call it a night. Maybe if the vampires thought he was dead, they would get careless, and he could get a whole bunch more at once. Or, maybe he really should hang it up until he got a better strategy. It was awful to think that maybe he needed back up, but maybe he did.

He wandered to the Church of the Stone Temple, mainly because he wasn't sure where else to go, and Rags was there, just leaving (probably for the bar). "Christ, Bren, where the 'ell 'ave ya been?" he exclaimed, crystal eyes flickering. "I thought maybe sumpfing bad 'appened to you too."

That didn't sound good. "Something bad has happened?"

He nodded vigorously. "Didn't 'elga tell ya? Th' guy wit' the eyes, Summers, is 'e's in 'ospital."

Even though he'd been with him for a while, when Rags talked fast, it always took him a moment to figure out what he just said. His stomach clenched, and he hoped he'd hard him wrong. "Mr. Summers is in the hospital? Why? What happened?"

"There was an explosion at 'is motel; a big flamey fing. I guess it's amazing' 'e's alive at all, but 'e's not doin' well."

Brendan could hardly believe what he was hearing - or what he thought he was hearing. (Rags needed subtitles - especially when he had been drinking.) "Was there a fight? Why the hell did his motel explode?" It was a very surreal life you led when you could say things like that and it didn't seem weird.

Rags shrugged expansively, arms held wide. "No one's sure. The media are blamin' a gas leak, but they always say shit like tha'. Some people I know say they picked up a major mystical blip on the radar about that time, but it wasn't, like, minor league demon shit. It was big ass nasty, and you'd fink it'd be worse than just an explodin' motel."

Mr. Summers came here looking for Bob. Was that a coincidence? Did someone not want him to meet with Bob? Or was he _after_ Bob..? No, that made no sense. Why would he do that? And he couldn't hurt Bob at all. (But Bob could hurt him … still, making a motel go boom? Bob was a bit more subtle and ironic than that. He never used a shovel when a teaspoon and a whole bunch of amphetamines would do.)

"I can take you there," Rags said. Brendan assumed he meant the hospital, not the site of the explosion. Not that it mattered - what could he do at the motel? Kick rubble around and agree an explosion was the cause?

Brendan nodded, the ache in his neck no longer that bad. "Yeah, okay. Thanks."

Did the people back at the school know? How could they, unless Xavier tried to find him with his Cerebro doohickey?

Man, if he had to call them, what would he say?

* * *

The address in Dublin led to a very quaint looking corner pub that had a certain sheen of newness about it, but even so was doing very good business. It was in a reasonably good neighborhood, and the clientele seemed to reflect that.

Inside, it was full of polished wood and gleaming brass, windows of frosted glass looking out on a main street where you could view the front windows of a curio shop and a book store across the way. If you leaned to the side, you could also see a small record shop advertising music on actual vinyl. It seemed like a pleasant pub in a pleasant location, and he felt like he was going into shock after being in the pit that was the Stag and Ram.

The place was almost full, but the noise of conversations were kept to a tolerable level, and he could just barely hear The Pogues coming from a hidden stereo system. He walked up to the polished oak bar, still wondering why Giles's witch friend would send him here, and the bartender came down to him. "And what can I get you?" he asked, in a voice so familiar Logan felt a sudden chill.

He was now face to face with Angel.

It was so shocking he didn't even know how to react. It was Angel all right, but very specifically in the flesh; his smell had changed. Oh, there was an undertone of the familiar, but it was all living Human now, no trace of death or demon, and while he didn't have a tan - this was Ireland, after all - his skin had less of a pallor to it, more of a living glow. He looked good. He looked … happy.

Except now he was looking at him quizzically, eyebrows raised. "Uh, sir ..?"

"Wow, Angel," he finally said, still feeling a bit flabbergasted. "I never would have expected to find you here."

Now he looked even more confused. "Angel? You know, you're the second American in as many days to call me that. Who is that?"

Logan couldn't have felt more gut punched. So Angel was back on earth, but for some reason he was Human, and he didn't know who he was, and he was a bartender. Of all the strange things that had ever happened, this seemed slightly stranger than most. (This from the guy who had just fought a demon pig, and was recently in a dive bar talking to a guy who may or may not have been Merlin's son.) "Uh … sorry, you just look like a guy I used to know. And I'm not American, I'm Canadian."

"Oh, sorry about that. I didn't catch the accent."

"It's okay." He really didn't know, did he? What had they done to him - and who could have possibly done something like this? He held his hand out, and said, "The name's Logan."

Angel shook his hand, and it was weird to feel that he had warm skin again. "Liam. So what can I get you, Logan?"

"A pint of the strongest stuff you have. And I mean the good stuff, not the weaker stuff you give to the tourists. I can take it." Liam? He'd heard someone call him that once. That must have been his real name, before he'd become a vampire. At least he remembered that.

Angel/Liam smirked, and went to retrieve a clean mug. "Ah, so you're more than a tourist, are you?"

"Yeah. I've been to Dublin a lot, but I have to say, I've never seen this place before. How new are you?" He'd lie as much as he had to to figure this out. What the hell had happened to Angel?

"Oh, I just opened this place two weeks ago. Can you believe it? Business is through the roof. I'm already going to make a profit. It's almost too good to be true, y'know?"

"Really? You a lucky guy?" He pulled out some money and put it on the bar, happy to be shedding some European money. He never did remember to get this stuff exchanged properly.

Angel chuckled, and returned with a pint of some beer so dark it was virtually black, with a thick head of foam you could have stood a pencil up in. "You know, I'm beginning to think so. I mean, first I get an inheritance from an Uncle I don't even know, and then I find this place, which I get for a steal, and the renovation came in under budget, which I've been told never happens -"

"An Uncle?"

"Yeah. Uncle Robert in Australia. I'm been looking into whether I have any more relatives in Australia, but I don't know."

That was it - his answer in a nutshell. Bob.

Hadn't Bob said he couldn't turn him Human? That if he got rid of the demon, Angel would still be a dead Human, just not an animate one. Was he lying? Or had the "Powers That Be" finally paid Angel back, and Bob just chipped in some money, because money meant bupkis to Bob. They took his memory of being undead, in exchange for a charmed life? It seemed unfair, but then again, Logan knew if he could trade some of his memories for a better life, he just might do it. As it was, he simply had his memories ripped away, and his life was no better for it. In fact, it could hardly be worse most of the time.

So what had happened to Fred and Spike? Were they walking around somewhere, Human again and oblivious? Or did the bargain only apply to Angel? He wanted to ask, but he knew he couldn't. He'd have to ask Bob; he'd most likely have the answer. Whether he'd give it to him was another story entirely.

Angel went off to serve other customers - he was doing a good business - and Logan nursed his stout, which he knew was incredible. He couldn't feel the alcohol, no, but he just knew from taste, texture, and how it initially hit his system that this was the good stuff, the stuff that would floor the novice or unwary. You had to love Irish beer.

And this place too. It was really quite pleasant, sitting here with a good beer, the Black Keys playing almost subliminally in the background, people talking softly, sometimes punctuated by the silvery sound of laughter. The atmosphere of the place was relaxed, but not depressed; if anything, he almost felt good, and that almost never happened when he was drinking in a bar. Maybe that's why customers were already flocking here; maybe Angel's place just bled good vibes. A strange gift from the Powers That Be, if they were indeed responsible. Somehow he thought fellow bar owner Bob might be; certainly Angel would never know if he'd met him or if he'd ever even been here.

He caught Angel looking at him a couple of times, mostly from the corner of his eye, and he tried to formulate a good lie in his head - who was Angel? But honestly, he didn't know what he'd say. All the lies seemed phony, no matter how he tried to dress it up or play it down. He could play drunk, though. If he was drunk, he wouldn't expect him to make sense.

Finally, Angel came back down to him, and said, "You look so familiar to me. Are you sure we haven't met before?"

Okay, he hadn't expected that. Was that just a little joke that Bob left behind? The stolen memory equivalent of an Easter egg? "No, I don't think so."

Angel's brown eyes brimmed over with skepticism. "Are you sure? Have you … have you ever been on t.v.?"

"Not deliberately."

Angel's brow furrowed, and he scratched his head, mussing his black hair. It wasn't moussed up, it was flat and natural, and it looked better on him than he thought it would. He was more accustomed to him having the pointy hair. "Huh. You're not local, obviously. Staying nearby?"

"No, I just got in."

The door opened again, which was hardly a new occurrence since it had been opening steadily all night, but for some reason Logan felt the need to look, and instantly he knew why: it was Meldane, strolling in casually, still in sports coat and sunglasses, an unlit cigarette jammed in the corner of his mouth.

Angel must have seen the look on his face and interpreted it correctly, because he asked, "Is he trouble?"

"No, just an asshole."

Meldane slid on the leather barstool beside him, and Angel asked amicably, "What can I get you?" Only because he had knew how he treated most of his customers did he notice the slightest bit of wariness on Angel's part.

"Glenlivet," Meldane said coolly, finally the pulling the cigarette out of his mouth and sticking it in his pocket. As soon as Angel went to get his drink, Logan leaned over and whispered harshly, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm not a fool. This was just destination one, wasn't it? I came here to get a drink, and make sure you get out of the British Isles. That was the deal, no?"

"Actually, no. The deal was for me to get the fuck out of London."

Meldane shrugged a single shoulder. "I changed the rules a bit."

"You really are an asshole."

That only made him smile. Jackass.

Once Angel returned with Meldane's glass of Scotch, Logan gulped down the dregs of his beer and stood up, feeling full if not exactly drunk. Not only did they make stronger beer, they served them in huge glasses. "I guess I gotta get moving. But it was nice meeting you … Liam. Continued good luck with the place."

"Thanks. Drop by whenever you're in the neighborhood."

"I will." Did he mean it? He wasn't sure. Part of him thought he should check up on him once in a while, make sure he was okay. But on the other hand, Angel was out; he was out of the strange, dark life that hid just beneath the surface of the waking world, and who could envy him the peace? The more he hung around, the more he was certain he would get Angel inadvertently sucked back into it again. Angel had earned his life away from all that, and far be it from him to taint or risk it in any way.

Logan then slapped Meldane on the back, much harder than necessary, and said, "Okay, let's do it."

Meldane looked back at him, scowling in disdain, and then said something in an arcane language, making a slight gesture with his hand. The entire bar seemed to freeze, and Logan could just make out a sort of pearlescent shimmer surrounding him and Meldane, the only two still capable of movement. Meldane's teleportation spell was different from Rags's or Amaranth's or even Bob's; according to him, travel was very easy when you slipped between "the spaces in reality", and supposedly that's what he did. Logan wasn't convinced he was telling him the truth, but as long as he got him where he needed to go in one piece, he didn't care.

But before getting on with it, Meldane asked, "So, did you find what you were looking for here?"

He gave him a sour look for even trying to pry into his business, but he knew it would have no effect on him. Meldane lacked a lot of things, but not sheer gall. "Yeah, I guess so."

"This pub is absolutely lousy with enchantments. Do you know why that is?"

"No clue. Is that why it seems nicer than your average bar?"

"Undoubtedly. It's all positive enchantments. Someone powerful is looking out for the owner, I can tell you that much." He eyed him dubiously. "But even if you knew who did it and why, you wouldn't tell me, would you?"

Logan shrugged, and then decided to fall back on a position that even Meldane couldn't argue with. "I dunno. I'm just the muscle."

His frosty blue eyes narrowed to slits, and Logan couldn't help but smirk. What, Meldane thought he was the only asshole around here?

Once he told him the location where he wanted to go, reality seemed to compress to a single point of light in the surrounding darkness, and then he seemed to be spit out, light rushing in to fill the gap, and he found himself outside Xavier's, a few feet from one of the side entrances. Should he have come back here? Even now he wasn't sure, but it was better than letting Meldane know he had a place in Vancouver. He really didn't want him dropping by unannounced.

Although everything looked normal on the outside, as soon as he touched the doorknob, he had the strangest sensation something was wrong. He remembered that nightmare he had about coming back to the school and finding it awash in blood, so he took a deep breath, carefully parsing smells, searching for the merest hint of blood. He didn't find any, and the strong, cloying scent of a lilac bush growing on the southeastern side of the house made him sneeze. It had to be nothing but his usual paranoia, but he couldn't shake the sense that something was wrong.

He went inside carefully, quietly, keeping his senses on full alert as he crept down the auxiliary corridor leading out to the kitchen. He had just about reached the bend in the corridor when he heard an odd creak, a strange noise, and therefore wasn't that surprised when something large and metal came flying at his face.

Logan instinctively grabbed it and pivoted tightly on his heels, throwing his assailant hard against the far wall, and before he could recover he was right on top of him, his fist mere centimeters from his eyes. "Move," he growled, almost hoping he'd take him up on the invitation. He'd skewer his brain to the wall like a hunting trophy.


	3. Part 3

But Logan realized the guy was wearing a suit of armor - no, not a suit; it was just his skin. He let out a sigh of disgust and let him go, dropping his hand. "Piotr, what the hell's the matter with you? Why did you try and hit me?"

"I didn't know it was you!" He claimed, eyes wide and startled in an otherwise metal face. "I didn't hear anyone coming up the walk! The door just opened - what was I supposed to think?"

"I dunno. Maybe someone was comin' in?" But that's when it sunk in how wrong the silence was. Kids made noise; lots of noise. "Shit, what happened? What did I miss?"

The metal started to disappear, retracting in its odd way, not quite submerging beneath the skin but being swallowed by it. Weird as hell. "The Professor was attacked, and whoever did it put the whole school to sleep. I haven't had time to wake anyone, I've been working on the Professor … or at least trying to. You don't have any medical knowledge, do you?"

He shrugged, aware that should have been a question he should have been able to answer without hesitation. "I can battlefield triage if I need to, I 'spose. How was he assaulted? How could he be assaulted?" He took a deep breath, parsing the air for traces of gas, but didn't pick up any. Not knocked out that way. Telepathy? Spell? Weird mutant power? "Any sign of forced entry?"

Piotr shook his head and started leading him down the hall. "None. But I'm glad you're here. You picked a good time to come back."

"I'm known for my timing," he deadpanned, looking inside the kitchen as they passed. There was someone passed out at the table, snoring very faintly. There were some more in the main hallway that they had to step over on their way to the elevator. He wasn't kidding about everyone being out - it wasn't even a light sleep, but an obvious hard one, the kind you had after you'd been up for five days in a row, driving through slush and muck, straight through the Yukon.

Not that he would know …

"You never said how he was assaulted," Logan pointed out, as soon as the elevator doors closed.

Piotr sighed heavily. "That's because I don't know. There's no obvious physical signs of harm, he's not bleeding, he's not bruised … he's just comatose. I think … I'd better call an ambulance."

"He can't go to a normal hospital, you know that."

The elevator doors slid open, revealing the brightly lit, sterile metal halls of the lower floors, and Piotr stepped out first, but rather than lead the way, he turned to face him, frustration darkening his expression. "But I don't know what else to do! I mean, my training has never covered this, and we need someone who might be able to help him. If anyone can."

"Okay, fine. Didn't Xavier have some kinda connections in the medical community? Someone he could trust to take care of mutants?"

"Yeah, I think so, but I don't know know who. It's not like he left notes."

Logan nodded, seeing his point, but not liking it much. Maybe it was just a personal prejudice on his part, but just the idea of putting a mutant in a normal hospital sounded like a recipe for disaster. "Let me see 'im first, okay?"

Piotr nodded wearily, and finally led the way down the hall. Logan again tried to parse the scents, but the air filtration system down here was far too good. This area was so sealed off from the rest of the school that it had its own air circulation and filtration system, one that couldn't be contaminated from fumes above, and vice versa. It also scrubbed the scents out of the air in twenty minute intervals, so all he was picking up was himself, Piotr, and Xavier. If someone else had been down here, he would not pick them up by odor, not now.

"You never told me how you weren't affected either," Logan pointed out.

"Huh? Oh, I was affected. I just got woken up."

"How?"

"By Ricky Martin."

Wow, things just got more surreal by the moment. "Say what?"

"On a cell phone ring tone … oh, never mind. It's not important."

Piotr had moved Xavier to Jean's medical lab, and attached him to a few flatscreen monitors that showed all the basics: heart rate, respiration, blood pressure. Everything was low, but from Logan's scant knowledge of the subject, he didn't think anything was critical. But then again, would he know? Xavier was a mutant, therefore his baseline averages might be different than that of a normal Human. He didn't know his heart rate was different until Jean told him, nor did he know his blood pressure had a tendency to spike when his healing factor was engaged (although in retrospect it made sense). She told him she wanted to study his blood pressure, try and figure out what was normal for him - apparently he had a wacky circulatory system; she called it "hyper-efficient" - but he just couldn't agree to any more medical studying ever. He'd been poked, prodded, and cut open enough for six hundred lifetimes.

And of course now it was a moot point.

"Do you know what his baseline averages are?" He asked.

Piotr nodded and went to one of the monitors, calling up a smaller window inside the main one. "Doctor Grey has all - well, almost all - of our basic statistics in her database."

"Almost all?"

He hesitated, and made sure not to look at him as he said, "It only goes up to students and staff who joined before ... well, you know. And your record is incomplete."

"It is? Oh, my blood pressure, right?"

That made him look at him. "How'd you know?"

"She told me she had no real control standard from which to gage it properly. Every time I was in her medical bay, I was out cold or somethin'. I just never got in for that standard, unhurt and vertical reading."

"Ah. Yeah, she has several notations on what she thinks it probably is, but the records she has of previous measurements is all over the map. If you were a normal Human, you'd have had a stroke or an aneurysm by now."

He scoffed. "Bub, if I was a normal Human, I'd be dead a million times over."

He looked carefully at the baseline standards for Xavier, and compared them to the current measurements. Xavier was close to normal Human physiology, as far as he could tell, and while his numbers were shockingly low, it still didn't strike Logan as critical ... yet.

But laying there on the table, under the harsh, unforgiving lights, he looked ghostly pale, and surprisingly delicate, like one good jolt could snap his spine. (Again? He never knew how to politely ask how he was paralyzed, so he never did, and Xavier never volunteered it. If the others knew, they didn't say either.) Piotr had thrown one of those reflective blankets over him, reducing his body to a small, undefined lump.

"Is he stable?"

Piotr didn't answer right away. He went through more of those windows, contrasting readings since the time he got him hooked up, and as he did, Logan scrutinized Xavier's face and neck, looking for any contusions or marks Piotr might have missed.

And that's when he smelled it.

It was a ghostly whiff of perfume, one he had to lean in close to Xavier's cheek to smell. It wasn't aftershave, the Professor didn't usually wear that anyways, as it had a hint of jasmine mixed with tones of vanilla. It was probably a very faint perfume by nature, one he could almost stand, but his nose was very sensitive to perfumes of all types, finding them all generally assaultive.

"What the hell are you doing?" Piotr asked.

Where had he smelled the perfume before? It had been a while, but he knew he'd smelled it before, in this very school. Where ..?

And then it hit him. His gut turned to solid ice, and he didn't want to believe it, but it might explain everything, wouldn't it. "Rogue."

"What?"

He turned to face Piotr, who continued to give him an odd look, like maybe he'd suddenly snapped and declared himself King of the Potato People. "Rogue. Rogue did this. I can smell her on him."

His blue eyes widened, bugged out ever so slightly. "Rogue! You can't be serious! Why would Rogue attack the Professor?"

"She wouldn't … not if she was in her right mind." He rubbed his eyes, and felt like a fool - no, worse. If the Organization had gotten to Rogue, and it was a simple logical leap to assume they had, it was his fault pure and simple. Damn it!

"What are you getting at? A telepath got to her?"

"That's probably the best case scenario." He sighed and looked at the still bewildered Piotr. "We need to see if anyone else at the school is missing. Saddiq, Scott -"

"Scott isn't here."

Holy fuck, did they get to him again too? "What d'ya mean he isn't here? He's missing?"

Piotr shook his head, hesitating ever so slightly. "Not … exactly. He stormed out of here a couple of days ago, took the jet. I guess he and the Professor had a fight, the Professor wouldn't say over what, but it seems he wasn't happy with the little field trip you guys took Rogue and Sad -" He paused, and his eyes bugged out even more, threatening to fall out of their sockets and roll under the table. "Jesus Christ, is that connected to this?"

"That'd be my guess, yeah. Do you know where Scott is?"

He shook his head and shrugged at the same time. "No idea. I'm not sure even the Professor knew."

So Scott was a wild card. Most likely he wasn't in Organization control, just in the midst of a hissy fit, but still he'd want to be in on this. Where the hell would he go? If even Xavier didn't know where he went, Scott most likely would have nullified the tracer in the jet. Damn it, he didn't need this shit right now.

He mulled it all over, and finally decided on a plan. It wasn't much of one, but he figured he'd need room to move depending on if Saddiq was gone or not. "If Rogue did this, there's no point in sending Xavier to a hospital - they won't know how to help him." He headed for the door, wondering if Scott would have everything he needed in his shop. Probably - he was a Boy Scout, and they were always prepared.

"Where are you going?"

"To wake up the kids and do a headcount. I need to know how bad things are before we plan a counter-strategy."

Piotr started to say something else, but he was already out the door, and it automatically shut and cut him off. No matter; he was in no mood to talk right now.

How could they have gotten to her? Telepathy was probably out of the question, because it wouldn't have made sense for her to touch him after he had been neutralized by a stronger telepath. What did that leave? The fact that she was already compromised when she walked in on Xavier. So how was it done?

That nanotech stuff? Or hadn't Bob once burned out a chip in his head supposedly? Either of those, perhaps - but how did they touch Rogue to even do it in the first place? They knew her powers; they must have had some inkling of what she could do, so they avoided touching her skin. How the hell did they get a chip in his head when he had an adamantium skull?

Because it was small - nano? - and they injected it into his brain through his eyeball. It sounded bad, but they had done much worse to him. They must have had Rogue just long enough in Mirror Lake to do just that. And what of Saddiq? His skin couldn't be cut with anything below adamantium, but they _had_ adamantium, and that aside, his eye was just as vulnerable as anyone else's. Gods, he hoped he was still upstairs somewhere, because Rogue being … well, rogue, was bad enough.

At least he knew Xavier would be fine. No one ever missed out on an opportunity to say "I told you so", no matter the circumstances.

Although Scott was gone, he still turned out to be ultra-dependable, as Logan found exactly what he was looking for in his garage workshop: a pair of sound muffling earphones, akin to the ones those guys who guided in planes on runways wore, and an air horn. He put on the earphones to protect his ears, and started walking through the upstairs levels of the mansion, blasting the air horn.

It woke everyone up, just like he knew it would. Just to encourage the groggy and confused kids to pull it together faster, as soon as they started stirring, he shouted that he'd be pissed off if they didn't wake up now. He knew he scared a lot of the kids, and the idea of getting him pissed off would put an extra vroom in their step.

He looked very hard for Rogue and Saddiq, yet wasn't too surprised to never find them. He did notice, with some surprise, that all the Eden kids seemed clustered together, away from the others. In a school full of mutants they still managed to be outcasts, because they weren't "real" mutants, but ones designed from a similar template, with the exact same power. And yet, even with their very specific group, there was a division: the Rajan kids seemed to keep to themselves, making the very stolid Saddiq the most "outgoing" - and ironically, deadly - of them all. And he was not among his "brothers", the youngest of whom was eight.

As soon as he was done doing his tour of the school with the air horn, he took off the earphones and left them and the mostly spent horn on an upstairs table. He was headed back down to check Xavier's office (maybe he did know where Scott was but hadn't shared the info, or conversely, maybe Scott had called), when he was intercepted by Bobby.

"Hey, you're back," he said, pointing out the blindingly obvious. "When did you get back?"

He scowled at him, both for getting in his way, and for asking such an unimportant question. "While you guys were sleeping."

"Yeah, what was that about?" He unconsciously rubbed a tiny little red spot on his forehead, the place where he had probably first impacted the floor; Bobby was one of the unfortunates who got hit with sudden narcolepsy in the hall.

"You tell me, I missed it. Did you hear something? What was the last thing you remember?"

Bobby continued to follow him down the hall, trailing him like a bad reputation, and even though Logan was relatively certain he hadn't been gone all that long, Bobby looked a little taller than the last time he saw him, and maybe a little lankier. Some teenagers just grew like weeds.

They'd reached the ground floor before Bobby reluctantly admitted, "I don't remember anything weird. I was talking to Jason about … math, and then there's nothing."

He bet he was talking about girls, not math, but that wasn't important; a powerful telepath simply told everyone in the school to sleep, and probably no one was consciously aware of the command. Since Xavier could do that easily, it was a sure bet Rogue did it as soon as she acquired his powers. Why? To make an unencumbered escape? There was no way to tell, at least so far, how long everybody had been snoozing before Piotr woke up.

"Look, Bobby, you're gonna have to help me."

His eyes seemed to brighten, and if he had a tail, he would have wagged it. Had he _ever_ been that eager about anything? "Sure. How?"

"I need you to do a head count, see if everyone who was here before the big sleep is still here." He was an idiot to think he could do it - he didn't even know all the kids that went to this school. He was never meant to be in charge of the school - that was Xavier's job, Scott's, Storm's, Jean's … but the first was comatose, the next two were missing, and the last was excused due to sudden godhood. Bit of a pisser, all in all.

Bobby looked a bit crestfallen, clearly hoping he could do something more than that, but then curiosity creased his brow, making his blue eyes narrow. "Wait - are you saying that people might be missing? Were we attacked?"

"In a way. Piotr will fill you in, he's downstairs, but do this first, okay? This is important."

The kid nodded reluctantly, wanting to ask him more about this, but Logan gave him the look, the one that said 'Don't even dare', and he seemed to get the message, because he turned away and headed back down the hall. How would he react when he realized Rogue was missing? They were still dating, right? God, he had no fucking idea. He wasn't here enough to know anything of value.

He heard the phone in Xavier's office ringing long before he got there, and he went to answer it, hoping that it was the boy scout checking in, sparing him from trying to track him down along with Rogue. (Not that he had to worry too much about that … )

"Yeah?" he barked into the receiver, noticing the light blinking on Xavier's answering machine. He had over a dozen calls waiting for him.

There was a pregnant pause before there was a hesitant, "Er, Logan? What are … I thought I was calling the Professor."

It was Brendan, which was a surprise. "You were, but he's indisposed right now. What d'ya need?"

Again a pause, and Logan suddenly got the feeling he had more bad news to give them. Why not? Good things may have came in threes, but bad things came by the gross. "I ... I guess it'll be easier sayin' it to you anyways. There was an explosion, and Scott's in the hospital here. I guess he's stable, but he seems to be critical. I guess he was lucky - this hospital has a whole mutant ward. It's like it's no big deal at all. No demon ward, mind you, but I guess those just belong to the specialty hospitals … "

Yep, he was right. Well, at least he didn't have to worry about finding him anymore. He sat on the edge of the desk, and listened to it creak in protest of his weight. "Here is still L.A. right?"

"Yeah."

"Know what happened?"

"No clue. He just showed up the other night, looking for Bob, and -"

"Wait a sec. He was looking for Bob? Why?"

"I don't know. I guess he said something about having strange dreams about Jean - Ms. Grey - and he thought Bob could help him with it. I don't know if Bob ever got back to him or not; I haven't heard that he's been around lately."

Jean. Oh holy shit no. She wouldn't try and kill Scott, would she? Hell, if she helped Kali come back, would anything be beneath her? No, that was different, that was Bob; she would take a shot at Bob if it was given to her. But Scott ..? No, he couldn't imagine that. That would be something he would do, not her.

Unless Scott just got in the way of her latest shot at Bob?

He rubbed his eyes, and tried not to think about it. He didn't want to believe such a thing about Jean, but he knew damn well something was deeply wrong with her. It wasn't just that she wasn't the "old Jean", it was the fact that she seemed to have been corrupted by her own power. It was, in all probability, driving her crazy, and he didn't know if they could ever trust her again. Did they dare? If only she didn't look like Jeanie, if she isn't almost act like her a majority of the time, it would be so much easier.

(If it was her … could he do it? Could he kill her again? Couldn't it be somebody else?)

"Do you know where he has the jet stored?"

"Huh?" It sounded like Brendan was a little startled. Had he been quiet that long? "Uh, no, but I'm sure I can find it."

"You do that, and fly it back here ASAP. There's something goin' on, and we may need you." Demons and the Organization continued to be a bad mix, and he wanted at least one with them on the hunt for Rogue. Besides, he knew Rogue and Brendan were close, and he'd probably want in on this.

"Umm, what? Did you just say fly it back?"

"Yeah. I know you can do it; Scott told me ya could."

Logan could feel the anxiety oozing over the phone. "Yeah, but … alone?"

"There's an autopilot function."

He sighed, but it sounded angry. "I know, but still …"

"Bren, look, if you don't feel confident enough to do it, fine. See if Rags can teleport an entire jet and you here, and find out as soon as you can."

"Things are that bad? What's happened?"

"I'll tell you when you get here. Now move, okay?"

"Okay. See ya."

If anybody could be said to hang up with reluctance, it was him. But as Logan dropped the receiver into its cradle, he found his mind straying back to Jean.

He couldn't think about her now, there was too much shit going on, but he knew she was on the short list of things they would have to deal with. They would have to determine, once and for all, if she was friend or foe, and react accordingly.

He just hoped to whatever indifferent Powers That Be sometimes glanced their way that he wouldn't have to be the one to kill her.

4

Sometimes you didn't need to be conscious to know you were in the wrong place.

He wasn't even near full consciousness yet, and yet Bob knew the energy this place was giving off was all wrong. He wasn't on Earth anymore; he was on a level where he couldn't quite gauge a steady power signature; it was constantly in flux, all over the map. He knew he was probably in a small pocket dimension, something too ill formed to sustain itself for long. And it smelled like the sea.

He shoved himself up, hand sinking to the wrist in fine, powdery white sand. He found himself looking at a calm lavender ocean, beneath a velvet green sky, and thought he spotted a similarity to Camaxtli's long lost realm.

"I was wondering when you were going to wake up," Jean said, somewhere behind him. Far behind him, suggesting she knew he wouldn't be happy.

And fuck no, he wasn't. He sat up, brushing sand off of him, ignoring the pounding in his head, and snarled, "Scott."

"What?"

"Scott. Remember him? I was the only thing protecting him from Xiuh's power. Did I teleport him out before he drained me, or didn't I?"

He looked back at her, and found her sitting on the top of a dune, sitting with her knees drawn up, arms wrapped around her legs. She looked small and strangely Human. The breeze ruffled her hair, and she could have been her old self, save for the flames still flickering low within her irises. That's how de-powered she was - they were almost gone. They were embers. "I saved your life, and all you can do is complain?"

He shoved himself up to his knees, and wondered if there was anything left of the old Jean at all. "Did Scott get clear or not?"

She shrugged. Unbelievable. "I'm sure he did. You acted fast."

"You're sure? You didn't even check?"

"I didn't have time. I had to get out of there before that thing realized I was still alive -"

"He was your fiancé for fuck's sake! Doesn't that mean anything to you anymore?"

Her eyes narrowed to slits. "Don't even presume to stake out the moral high ground here, Bob. I know what you are. I know what you _did_."

He loved that emphasis on the end word. Of course he knew what she meant, and he wasn't at all surprised. He knew some gods just couldn't wait to talk all about him. He climbed to his feet, trying to ignore the terrible throbbing in between his eyes, and the natural weakness that came from Xiuh trying to suck him dry of all his power. Jean did intercede in time, pulling him out to this unstable bubble universe away from him, but he barely had any energy left at all. Clearly, she hadn't faired much better. "And I know you, Jean, so don't try and take the moral high ground with me either, toots."

"Toots?" She then shook her head, dismissing it. "Who the hell is he, and how come he's been able to drain my power?"

It wasn't difficult to guess who she was talking about. "Xiuhcoatl the fire snake, the Aztec god of drought and deserts and the very first scorched earth policy. And it's not really a he; it's an it."

That earned him a dirty look. Her power signature was surprisingly mild, almost Human. "You know what I mean. Why did he say Camaxtli's power was his - its - not mine?"

He rubbed his aching forehead and chuckled, turning away to face the lilac surf. He wondered if he had enough power left to make it a little choppy; some surfing would be nice right about now. Might calm the throbbing in his head.

"Don't you dare ignore me," she snapped.

He couldn't help but chuckle at that, and he didn't bother to turn and acknowledge her, as they were the only two people in this dimension. And she would never have saved him if she didn't want something from him, something much bigger than mere information. She wanted something she could only get with his power or his help, and he couldn't help but wonder how on earth - any of them - she was going to make him play along, as he really wasn't inclined to. Not her, not now. "Who'd you piss off enough to make them bring Xiuh into this?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"You know. And I'm not answering your question until you answer mine." Actually, he thought he knew, but he wanted her to admit it. It wasn't like they didn't have all the time in the world. Until Xiuh tracked them down and killed them both.

How did he end up in so many situations like this? He just didn't live right.

* * *

He was just finishing up playing Xavier's messages, seeing if anyone had left anything interesting (no - a parent making an enquiry into the school, several telephone solicitors, a banker who identified himself as Hernandez, and a hang up call with what sounded like doctors being paged in the background - an earlier call by Brendan, who must have decided he couldn't leave such grim news on an answering machine), when Piotr came storming in, demanding answers. 

Logan was too tired to even get pissed off at him. He told him it was probably the Organization counting coup, and even though he explained there was no way he or Scott could have known that Rogue had been compromised in any way - even she didn't know - Piotr still got angry about it anyways. He kicked over a coffee table, sending it slamming into wall at great force, making it shatter into little bits of kindling, and ranted and raved about responsibility and other shit he pretty much expected from Xavier. He was angry enough that he actually slipped into Russian for part of it, probably without realizing it, and Logan knew he couldn't feign ignorance, because he already knew he spoke Russian. Still, he let it go in one ear and out the other, just letting him vent, because there was simply no way Piotr could be more angry at him than Logan was at himself.

Finally ranted out, he exclaimed, "Why the hell aren't we out there looking for her now?"

Logan sighed, and wondered when he got as old as he currently felt. "'Cause there ain't no need. They'll let us know where she is."

That seemed to confuse him. "What?"

"They know I'm not gonna stand for this; they know I'll come after her. In fact, I'm sure they're counting on it. They will leave, or have already left, a major clue to her destination, or they'll have Rogue leave it in an obvious trail of bodies. They'll want to lead me - us - into a trap, a place where they'll control the battlefield. They know we won't just give her up like that, so they'll have a plan in place for us." It was a game; a very old and tired game.

Now Piotr just looked flabbergasted, and made several helpless gestures with his hands. "But … so … what the hell are we gonna do about that? We're just not gonna stand for that, are we?"

Before he could tell him that yeah, they were pretty much going to have to, Bobby came rushing in, panting and breathless. As he struggled to get enough air to speak, Logan said, "Let me guess - Rogue is missing."

His eyes widened in surprise, and he nodded, slightly dumbstruck. "I think Saddiq's gone too; I can't find him anywhere."

Both of them. Holy shit. Together, they were a two person army, very close to unstoppable. He sincerely hoped the Organization hadn't picked the "you will know us by the trail of the dead" option, because it could be a sizable one.

It was then that he noticed Bobby had something in his hand. It was a square of paper, or maybe thin cardboard, held behind his back. "I found something weird," the boy said, explaining the paper. "It was tacked to the door of Rogue's room, but it wasn't there this morning. I don't know what it's supposed to mean, but -"

Logan held out his hand and gestured for him to give it to him. He did, obediently, but Logan noticed he was very careful handing it to him, like he was afraid his claws might accidentally "go off".

The square of paper was actually a book cover, probably torn off a library book. It was "The Drowned World" by J.G. Ballard.

He felt the shadow of Piotr fall over him as he leaned in to look at it. "What's that supposed to mean?" He wondered.

Logan shook his head and tossed it on the desk, hating the Organization more than anything in this universe. He didn't even hate himself as much as he hated them. " That's their message; that's where she's going."

"The Drowned World?" Bobby asked in disbelief.

They were both looking at him so expectantly, he hated to give them such a pedestrian answer. "Alkali Lake. They're heading back to Alkali Lake."


	4. Part 4

Bobby was so confused he almost got angry. "What? I don't understand, what's going on?"

Was there any way to sugar coat this? No, and even if there was, Logan knew he sucked at doing it. "The Organization got to Rogue and Saddiq. They attacked the Professor, put everyone to sleep, and took off. To Alkali Lake, apparently."

His jaw dropped, and he seemed to pale, but it was hard to tell; he was already pretty pale. "What? How did they get to her?" After the briefest pause, he added, "This is all your fault, isn't it?"

He had to give him points for cutting right to the chase. Logan shot a harsh look at Piotr before admitting, "That seems to be the consensus."

"Well, what are we sitting here for? We have to go save her! Them."

"But it's a trap," Piotr pointed out. "You just said it was."

"Yeah, well, we have to work with what we got."

"And what does that mean?" Piotr demanded.

"It means we do our best to guess how they'll attack us, and think up a counter strategy."

For a long moment, the pair of them just stared at him vacantly. Finally, Piotr asked, "And how the hell do we do that?"

Well, on the bright side, he'd have no one arguing strategy with him.

* * *

Ideally, he could fight the Organization himself, but he knew that was never going to happen, and besides that, they would be ready for him. If they were confident enough to have left such an obvious message for him, and in such a place, they were fucking confident they could take anything they threw at them. So Logan was left in a minor quandary. Not trying to save Rogue and Saddiq was out of the question - but how many people would he be willing to sacrifice to save them? He just bet that was the secondary point of this whole thing: make him choose people to die.

News of Xavier's condition and Rogue and Saddiq spread like wildfire. It seemed every friend Rogue had volunteered to help go find her; the Rajan kids volunteered to help with Saddiq, but the oldest of that group was twelve, and they were completely out of the question. In fact, everybody without some kind of battle experience was out of the question, meaning the team was, essentially, him, Bobby (his battle experience could be argued, but he had a projection power, and they needed that), Piotr (okay, no real battle experience, but he was a big metal guy), and Brendan (more battle experience than Bobby and Piotr combined). But considering they would most likely be facing Rogue, Saddiq, and who knew what kind of soldiers and mutants with unknown abilities and weapons, it looked bad for them, honestly; it was the perfect no win scenario, in the perfect no win place. It seemed to be their way of saying: "Come here and die again, Wolverine."

But if he brought some surprise players into this scenario, maybe he could unbalance them enough to give them an edge. He did have a nascent plan in mind, but he needed contingencies, in case everything went wrong. And that's why he tracked Kitty down to the gym.

Bobby had told him she had changed quite a bit since he was last here, and he assumed she'd gotten taller too, maybe gained some weight, but he was incorrect. She was still a very small and slight girl, a perfect fit with her power (she already looked like she was barely tangible anyways); what she had changed was her hair. It was short, dyed raven black, and she had put some of that temporary color at the tips, an icy neon blue. Goth Kitty? He really never pegged her as the type; she seemed relatively sedate, the good girl to Rogue's bad girl.

She was still very interested in learning to be "useful", and was currently working the heavy bag, throwing standard combinations and breaking it up with a kick or two, but pound away as she might, she wasn't really moving the thing. How many of her would it take to make one of those bags? A dozen maybe?

"Keep your left up," he advised her. "You keep droppin' it."

From the way she started and turned, she hadn't heard him come in, and she seemed almost embarrassed. "Oh, hey," she said, looking down and coloring slightly. Her face reddened, but he couldn't tell if it was from embarrassment or just from exertion. "Yeah, my left is kinda my weak side."

"You need to work on it. Having a strong side is no good if you're completely vulnerable on the other."

She nodded, oddly chastened, and he felt bad for her. Even he knew Rogue had been her best friend, and he was never here. He saw a pair of boxing gloves hanging from a peg on the wall, and retrieved them as he asked, "Wanna show me what you've got? Saddiq's been teaching you, right?"

She seemed surprised, and yet pleased. Sometimes it was just easier to hit things than talk, and no one knew that better than him. "Yes, he took over the class, more or less, since you've been gone. Mr. Summers monitored it pretty closely, though; he didn't want him to teach us anything lethal."

He slipped on the gloves, and made sure he was faced away while he smirked. That wasn't going to do them any good now, was it? Saddiq couldn't be taken down with non-lethal means; he was a designed and trained killing machine. As for Rogue, if she could touch your skin, you were fucked, and that didn't even bring in the frustrating variable that she would also have the powers of the last mutant she happened to touch.

Logan assumed a neutral expression before turning around, holding his gloved hands up in a traditional stance. "Let's see what he taught you."

She looked up at him warily. "You're not gonna hit back, are you?"

That was so touching it was hard not to laugh. "Hell no. I just want to see what you got."

"I'm … I'm not sure how much control I have …"

"You can't hurt me, even if I don't manage to block. But don't hit too hard, 'cause I don't want you to hurt yourself on me."

This was the right tack to take. She glanced down at the mat and smiled slyly. "You know how arrogant that sounds don't you?"

"Hey!" But, after a moment, he admitted, "Yeah, it does. But I do contain about a hundred pounds of adamantium. A lot of people have broken bones on me by landing a bad punch. And thanks to all that extra strain on body, I'm much more muscle than fat. I'd make a lousy air bag."

"Oh, the joke I could make there."

"Shut up and hit me already."

She threw a roundhouse right he saw coming before she even raised her arm, and he moved his gloved hand (for her benefit, not his) easily to block. She tried a left jab, and again, it was an easy block. He went on auto-pilot, letting his reflexes take over, so even when she tried connecting with a lot more speed, a lot more variations, it didn't matter. Fighting was drilled into his brain, imprinted and branded like scars across his frontal lobe that just wouldn't heal. Staring at her, he could tell just by the shift of her weight, her stance, her body language, what was coming next, and his muscle memory was already responding in kind, moving to block, and all he had to do was squash the urge to fight back, to take advantage of the obvious opening and lay her out flat.

He and Saddiq, sadly, had a lot in common.

She was growing more and more frustrated, throwing punches at him harder and harder, frustration making her eyes blaze. Why was this so important to her? Why did she want to impress him? She decided to throw in some kicks, but this was where her height worked against her, her legs were too short to have much reach, and of course she hadn't had much martial arts training, and she telegraphed her intention to kick long before she actually did. Again, easy blocks, and while he was tempted to just grabbed her foot and yank her off her feet, hopefully teaching her a lesson, he didn't, because she seemed angry enough as it was.

Finally she went for a combination, right cross - left kick, and she was so inexperienced and weak on her left that as soon as she kicked after he blocked her right, she unbalanced herself and fell backwards, landing hard on her butt.

"Fuck!" She explained loudly, then looked horrified and slapped a hand over her mouth.

He chuckled, and reassured her, "Don't worry, I won't tell Summers." He shucked his gloves off like a hockey player preparing to fight, and reached a hand down towards her. "Yer doing good, kid. Just don't try and do somethin' you're not trained to do."

Her disbelief was obvious, shading towards rage. He suspected she was mad at herself, but you can't yell at yourself without looking crazy. "Good! Are you kidding me? I suck! I couldn't stick a single punch."

"You know what I did for several years, on and off? Get in bare knuckle and ultimate fighting contests, most of them as illegal as hell. Fighting is second nature to me. You can train for years, darlin', and you'll probably never even be close to my level. Sounds arrogant, yeah, but when your next beer depends on being better than the other guy, you get good real fast."

Something bloomed in her dark eyes, a kind of understanding, and awe mitigated her anger. "So ... you're like a professional boxer?"

"Something like that."

She took his proffered hand, and he helped her to her feet. "So you're like Mike Tyson."

"No, he's a pussy."

That startled a laugh out of her, a kind of guilty schoolgirl titter that made him smile, if only because it was so damn cute. He was glad she still had enough innocence to do that. He didn't want to be the one that took that away from her.

She turned away to take off her own sparring gloves, and he finally decided to ask, "Why'd you want to impress me so bad?"

Her spine stiffened, and she paused briefly, radiating guilt. When she replied, she spoke down at the floor. "I wanted ... I want to be a part of the team that goes after Marie. I mean, I know I can't do anything, but she's my friend, and -"

"That's why I came to find you, Kitty."

She finally looked at him, hopefulness tempered with wariness. "You want me to come?"

"Yes, I do, but only under certain conditions."

Her shoulders sagged, and she made that noise that only women could, that sort of half-sigh that almost sounded like a tongue cluck, a kind of 'Oh, men' exhalation. "What conditions? You don't want me to fight?"

"I wouldn't ask that of anyone. That's a personal choice, and I already know teenagers don't listen. No, what I want you to do is promise me you'll exercise the same common sense you've used before."

That really confused her, and he didn't blame her. She probably didn't think he was around enough to know anything about her. "What do you mean?"

"Out of all of us, when we were attacked, you did the most sensible, logical thing: you ran."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Acted like a coward, you mean."

"No, not a coward. The odds were overwhelming, and you didn't know the players, so you ran. That's common sense, honey, and that was the right thing to do. You followed your instinct, and you should always - let me repeat that, always - follow your instincts. We all have a little voice in our heads whose sole purpose is to keep us alive. We learn to ignore it 'cause we think it's foolish, or 'cause we got some goddamn macho bug up our butts, but the truth is it's there for a reason. It's an evolutionary throwback, something in our reptile brain screaming at us, and most of us squash it. You haven't, and for god's sake, don't let the fear of looking like a coward make you. You are not a coward; you have instincts, and you should obey them. When it tells you to fight, do it. When it tells you to run, run. Okay?"

She grimaced, clearly doubtful, and still somewhat ashamed. But he was being honest, and he hoped that sincerity got through. "You don't run," she said.

He had been expecting that. "That's 'cause I'm an idiot. A nearly unkillable, brain-fucked idiot. What's your excuse?"

Kitty looked away, probably so he didn't see her smile (too late), and when she was sure her voice wouldn't betray her amusement at his own personal assessment, she asked, "Is that all I have to do?"

"No, there's one more thing."

Just from the movement of her shoulders, he guessed she rolled her eyes. "I knew it."

"I need your agreement that if things get really bad, or if I tell you to, you will leave."

She groaned, disappointment clear in her posture. "You want me to run away? Why, 'cause I'm good at it?"

"You know that's not what I mean. If it all goes to hell - and odds look good it will - when I tell you to, I want you to go so you can get reinforcements and save all our asses. You're gonna be my lieutenant, but only if you're gonna obey my orders."

She finally looked at him, skeptical but mildly flattered. "Why me?"

"Because if they can't touch you, they can't hurt you." He dug a scrap of paper out of his pocket and held it out to her. The only thing written on it was a phone number. She raised an eyebrow at him, but she took it. "We get in deep shit, you get away, and you call this number. Say I'm in trouble, and we need help now. Then you lead the cavalry back to us to save our asses."

She looked it over, probably longer than she needed to, and finally nodded, but when she glanced up at him, her look was sly. "If I agree to do this … will you teach me some of the stuff that Mr. Summers doesn't want you to teach us?"

"You're sneaky. I like that. Sure I will, but that's just between us, right? And don't show that number to anyone, okay?"

"Okay. Whose number is it?"

He shook his head. "I tell ya, I have to kill ya."

She scoffed and folded it up, holding it between her fingers like a hidden razor blade in a fighter's fist. It reminded him that there was one tip he could give her. "Kitty, tell me, can you go incorporeal, but still have something remain partially corporeal in your hand?"

She raised her eyebrow again, as if it was a loaded question. (It probably was.) After weighing the option of lying or exaggerating, she seemed to decide she might as well be honest. "Yes, kinda … I've been practicing."

"Good. If you're ever in a tight spot, remember, anything you materialize inside someone and pull out will act like a reverse bullet. It will not only hurt like hell, but it will unbalance your opponent severely. They won't get it, and they'll be freaked out. A pencil, a twig, a shoelace - anything you yank through a person is going to be disturbing. Just keep it in mind." He started to turn away, and then suddenly spun around and lunged at her.

She yelped in fear and he dove straight through her, hitting the mat face first. She stepped aside, still incorporeal, although she looked solid, more or less. Sunlight was bleeding in through a high window, and he could just about see it through her. "What the hell did you do that for?" She exclaimed, becoming solid once more.

He jumped back up to his feet, and grinned at her. "Just testing. See? You got some good instincts."

She just shook her head and eyed him warily as he turned and left the gym. But her final statement made him laugh: "You're a very strange person."

She didn't know the half of it.

Once that was done, he returned to his room, and found the book he had taped to the back of his headboard, out of the reach of any questing hands that didn't bother to pull the bed away from the wall. It was just a mass market paperback of Richard K. Morgan's "Altered Carbon", a good, hard boiled science fiction novel, but probably nothing someone would ever steal from his room. And if they did, and rifled through it in hopes of a piece of paper falling out, they'd be disappointed, as nothing fell out. It was a slightly worn but otherwise sound book, without a single thing in it.

Until you turned it upside down, and looked at the bottom of page two eighteen.

There was a series of numbers written in the small blank space at the bottom of the page, a phone number, one he knew he'd never remember and one he hoped he'd never have to use. But now was the time to utilize every wild card he had, and Scott and Xavier were in no position to give him shit about it.

He'd tried to call Marcus earlier, but he got his machine. He was off on a job, and wouldn't be back 'til who knew when, so he was out of the picture. But in a way that was okay, because Marc probably wouldn't feel too good about this either.

He locked himself in Xavier's office, and made sure all recording devices were disconnected before he punched in the number. After the fourth ring, it was picked up. "Speak," the man said, his voice gravelly and thick.

"Wing," Logan said quietly, watching dust motes dance in the ray of sun spilling onto the desk. "I'm calling in my chit."

There was a dramatic silence, but since Wing liked his dramatic silences, he wasn't surprised. "Mr. Yashida," he finally said, in a voice as smooth as velvet and cold as steel. "I was wondering if you'd ever call it in."

"I was hopin' not to, but the shit piles up too deep after a while."

"I know what you mean." He paused to cough, and it was a deep, painful wet hack, something that sounded like it was scraping the lining off the insides of his lungs. His cancer was advancing at a good clip; he probably only had a couple of months left. "Pardon me. So what is it you need?"

"An army, basically. Got one I can use?"

''You're being funny."

"No, it just sounds like it. I'm dead serious."

"All right, then. What do you need this army for?"

"There's a deep black ops government agency that's going to attack me and some of my people at a place in the Canadian Rockies called Alkali Lake. I'd like to throw a little surprise party for them."

"A government agency? Well, I must admit my men would probably line up two deep for that."

"No love for government in the Triad? What, not even the Chinese one?"

"Ah, but that's different. Even a mangy dog knows better than to attack the old man who abides its presence, and sometimes throws it scraps over the fence."

"You got that from a fortune cookie."

That started a laugh from him, which soon morphed into another hacking wet cough. He held the phone away from him, and it sounded like he spit something out. Jesus, he was bad. How was he still functioning as the head of the West Coast Triad? Then again, he knew how deceptively dangerous Wing was, no matter how frail he appeared on the outside. He was a master manipulator, fearless and hard, and a man who knew where the bodies were buried, mainly because he buried most of them himself.

Once he had composed himself, he came back on the line. "I do miss your brazen irreverence. No one in my organization would dare to voice such a thing around me."

"I ain't scared of you."

"I know, that's what makes you so refreshing. Well, to a degree. I imagine I'd get sick of you if I had to deal with you on a daily basis."

Logan chuckled, and held his hand up in the shaft of light, trying to see the shadow of the metal beneath his skin. "You'd be surprised how much I hear that."

"I doubt it. Now, about this army … I'm afraid I will need a bit more information. I'm aware I owe you, and I do live up to my word, unlike many sad excuses for Humans nowadays, but something of this scale requires some details."

"It's a group called the Organization. I assume they'll have body armor and state of the art weaponry, some designed to take out specific mutant threats. They have adamantium bullets, hypersonic weapons, the whole bit."

He heard him light up a cigarette - he was still smoking! Well, it didn't matter now, did it? - and after coughing somewhat more elegantly this time, he spoke. "Ah yes, we've had some of their weaponry wash up in our coffers. We've never known who they work for or what their agenda was, though. Still, no matter, this will probably end in heavy casualties on our side, and I'm not sure I can allow that willingly, Mr. Yashida."

He felt like correcting him, but there was no point. He wouldn't call him Logan; it was either a curious respect thing, or a curious affectation. "They kidnapped two kids, Wing. Two mutant kids, and they intend to use them as weapons. I'm leading a rescue mission to get them back, but I know it's a trap. They … I worked for them once, against my will, and I escaped. They've never forgiven me."

Another of his trademark long pauses, but he knew he'd gotten him. Crime lord or not, he didn't abide the hurting of children; as far as he was concerned, they were off limits. That made him, in this day and age, a dinosaur. "You're taking care of the kids, I trust?"

"Yeah. But they're gonna have an army there -"

"That we will take care of," he interrupted, his voice even colder than before. Yeah, he made the right call - children involved in adult battles was still something he could not tolerate. "They may have state-of-the-art weaponry, but so have we; anything money can buy. And that's a large list. Do you know how many men they'll have there?"

He smiled, but quickly tamped it down, so he didn't hear it in his voice. "No, but I doubt it will be under twenty five."

"They expect a fight." It wasn't a question.

"We're all mutants; they anticipate ugliness. And I don't go quietly."

"I'd be disappointed in you if you did." He exhaled noisily, with just a slight wheeze at the end. "Any other special requests?"

"Just that your team doesn't attack any of my team. We'll be down there and in action."

"How do we identify them? I mean you're pretty identifiable, with your hair."

"Ha. We'll be dressed up like leather boys."

"A help indeed."

"And if you've got mutants in your Canadian branches, now's the time to deploy them."

"Mutants are a decadent Western thing," he replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "We don't have any."

"Right. Also, one more thing: got anything that can discharge an almost lethal Human dose of electricity?"

Again the pause of doom, where he inhaled smoke and choked on it, while Logan watched the dust motes swirl almost in rhythm with Wing's labored breathing. He did have time to wonder if he knew what he was doing, if this could be an even bigger disaster than if he just went in with everybody else alone, and he supposed it was just time to bite the fucking bullet and find out. If it was a bigger disaster, would it really matter that much? Alone it would be a slaughter. At least, with the Triad involved, it might be a massacre on both sides. "Dare I ask why you might need something capable of discharging that much energy?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

"It's a decadent Western thing; you wouldn't understand."

At least he made him laugh. It just might distract Wing long enough for him to make up a plausible lie, because if he told him the truth, he'd never agree to help him.

And at the end of the day, Logan wasn't sure he would blame him.

5

The wait was interminable.

Oh, he waited just outside the skin of reality, so time would pass more quickly, but it was exhausting to keep it up, and hard to judge exactly when it was ideal to drop the protective bubble and slide back into reality and its time stream once more. Still, Meldane did it until the night came on, hard and fast, and finally he let it slide away, coming back to the world. In spite of the streetlights, he could see the faint glimmers of stars above him in the indigo sky, the moon a thick crescent like the blade of a shrunken sickle, and he watched people stagger to their cars or stagger down the street after nights of drinking or partying. The funny thing was, they were generally young or generally old, with people in the middle being rare indeed. When you were young, a night out was a treat; when you were old, it was a necessity.

Finally the man who called himself Liam started closing up his enchanted pub, and Meldane put up the slightest cloaking spell, so he blended in with the brick wall of the curio shop he was sitting against, only giving him time to wonder if anyone ever bought a snow globe with little shamrocks in it when the man came out, locking the exterior door with his small ring of keys. He was a big man, tall, well over six foot, broad shouldered, who carried himself in such a way that said he had nothing to fear. Probably true; few people around here were probably big enough to take him on, no matter how drunk they were. But there was something else in his attitude that bled through his posture, the way he carried himself - was he aware of the enchantments? Did he give himself a couple as well? Something was clearly not right about this man, and it nagged at the back of his brain like an itch far too awkward to scratch. There was a puzzle here, a riddle, and he would solve it, even if he had to strip the enchantments down one by one.

That's when Meldane noticed how the shadows moved.

They seemed to coalesce, become figures, lithe, dark, and deadly. Five vampires, two females and three males, dressed like modern youth out on the town, enjoying the unseasonable warmth and crystal clear night. They were a whisper, a stray fog, and they had surrounded him before he turned away from the door and saw the first of them.

They didn't have their vamp faces on, so clearly he thought they were just potential customers, and didn't seem at all surprised to see them. "Oh, sorry, we're closed. Come back tomorrow." He then looked around, and noticed that they had him circled.

One of the women, a brunette in a t-shirt with "Brat" written across the front in red rhinestones, leaned in and looked at him closely. "Jesus, Angelus," she said, although with her brogue it sounded kind of like "Jay-sus Ayngelus". "What the fuck's happened to you?"

Angelus?

The man looked confused. "Angelus? Umm, look, you have me confused for someone else -"

But before he could go any further, two of the vampires behind him, an Indian male and a blonde female, each grabbed one of his arms and held them behind his back while the other three diverged on him. "You think I can be confused?" The brunette continued, sounding enraged. "I damn well know the man who killed me, you gobshite." She morphed into vamp face then, all teeth and glowing yellow eyes, and Meldane had a millisecond to decide whether he should get involved or not.

It was quickly a moot point.

Liam kicked the vampiress flush in the chest, with enough force to send her flying back into one of her friends, and they both hit the pavement in a tangle of limbs. He then spun around, somehow getting one arm loose, and threw the blonde face first into the door of his pub using the momentum of his spin. The bartender then punched the Indian vampire square in the jaw, actually making him reel, and then followed up with a kick to the stomach that doubled him over and dropped him to his knees. Liam then pivoted with almost super-human speed, turning into a spinning kick that caught the only standing vampire right in the side of the head, sending him sprawling in the center of the street. So Liam was some kind of black belt, was he? A black belt strong enough to stagger a vampire?

The brunette jumped back up to her feet growling, and lunged for him, but he must have seen it in his peripheral vision, as he spun away just enough to avoid her, but kept in close enough to give her a little mid-air push and send her flying straight through the windshield of a parked car. She crashed through the glass and plopped into the front seat, setting off a car alarm that whooped through the empty streets, echoing off the walls of the buildings. While he found the noise irritating, it was even worse for the vamps with their more sensitive hearing, and while they cringed, they didn't seem to notice that Liam had broken an empty crate sitting at the mouth of the alley they had come through, and using a broken board he pulled from the ruins, he staked them all with a surgical precision that was worthy of a Slayer. The fact that they exploded into dust didn't seem to phase him.

The brunette vamp wasn't so dazed she didn't realize what was happening. She kicked open the passenger side door, the one facing the street, and slid out, glass still sticking in her face and arms like the weirdest pieces of body jewelry in existence. She kept the car between them as she hastily backed down the street, and she pointed at Liam and said, "I'm comin' back for ya, fucker! Yer a dead man! Again!"

He kept advancing, and that's when Meldane noticed a sort of hard vacancy in his eyes, like he was more android than Human at the moment. She must have noticed too, because she took off running down the street, getting lost in the shadows as soon as possible.

As soon as she was gone, Liam just stood there for a moment in the middle of the street, impromptu stake clutched tightly in his hand, and then it snapped. Whatever caused that hardness to come to the surface disappeared, and even though his eyes remained open the whole time, it was like watching a man wake up. The stake fell from his hand, and he looked around, confused and obviously dismayed. After a moment, he exclaimed, to no one in particular, "What the fuck..!"

Meldane was glad the car alarm drowned out his snicker. So someone enchanted his bar to make it a happy place, and someone gave him some kind of unconscious "failsafe" to protect him from big bad baddies? Curious enough.

But to say he was Angeleus, the legendary vampiric scourge of Europe? The supposedly _dead_ scourge of Europe? Curiouser and curiouser.

It confirmed the suspicion he had when he first saw him. He thought he was Angelus, but it didn't make sense. Who would be sick enough to turn Angelus into a Human? The fact that he could still defend himself - even without his own knowledge - suggested it wasn't a punishment. So who did this, and why?

And would they show themselves if he tried to put that bastard back in the ground where he belonged?

Meldane wondered if he was strong enough to find out.


	5. Part 5

6

It turned out Rags could teleport a jet, but not without passing out as soon as they all materialized. Still, Logan picked him up and plopped him on a couch - had he gained weight? - while Bobby and Piotr brought Brendan up to speed on what had happened. He brought them up to speed on what had happened to Scott, since Logan hadn't mentioned it, and there was much shock and angst all around.

He got a bit yelled at again, but let it wash over him, not really even hearing their words. He picked up on the anger and the pain, and he felt bad about it, but what could he do about it now? He had a plan, at least for Rogue and Saddiq; Scott was on his own until Bob showed up, whenever that was and wherever he was. He'd called the Way Station earlier, in hopes that Bob could solve this problem for them, but according to a very testy (was she ever not?) Lia, he wasn't there, and she hadn't seen him for almost a month; she had no idea if he was back on Earth or not. (The worst part of that statement was the fact that it didn't strike him as even slightly abnormal until he thought about it later on.)

He ordered some Chinese take out from a phone number stuck with a magnet to the fridge, and when it was delivered, the delivery guy gave him a funny look, probably aware that this was a mutant school. But he talked to him in Cantonese, and that made the guy feel much better, although the tip made him almost ecstatic. Not big tippers in upstate New York?

He ate his meal in Xavier's office, waiting for Wing to call him back. He wasn't making a move to go until Wing gave him the ETA for his crew; this mission wasn't under way until then, because otherwise all these kids were just lambs to the slaughter. He wanted to give them a fighting chance, no matter how meager.

He was almost done with his Szechwan chicken when Brendan came in, giving him a look that could almost qualify as the "stink eye". At least he waited until he closed the door to start in on him. "Maybe you can fool the others, but you can't fool me. I know you're … hey, are you actually using chopsticks?"

Logan glanced down at them, just to see if they could be mistaken for very long forks. No. "Yeah. It ain't rocket science, kid."

He scoffed. "The hell if it ain't. I tried to use 'em once, in this sushi place, and I got some seaweed stuck on the wall. I don't even know how that happened, as I wasn't near the wall." He paused, and then admitted, "I've digressed, haven't I?"

Logan shrugged. "You tell me."

"Oh, right. Okay, so what's your plan?"

"To finish my lunch. I haven't eaten since -"

"Don't be a smart ass with me," Brendan interrupted forcefully, and Logan was kind of impressed. He'd been doing a lot of growing up while he was gone, hadn't he? "You have a plan, and you're deliberately leaving us all out of it. Why?"

He chewed thoughtfully on a chunk of red pepper before deciding the best way to answer him. He could lie, but Brendan was pretty perceptive, so he'd probably catch him out. He'd already caught him out on the things he wasn't saying, which was more than Bobby or Piotr had done, and Kitty didn't know him well enough to judge. "Fifth amendment."

Brendan stared at him, his red eyes like rubies. "What?"

"It's the Fifth amendment, right? It's an American thing, so maybe I'm wrong, but that's the one where you decline to incriminate yourself, huh?"

He scowled at him, not at all impressed. "You really think I'm gonna accept that?"

"You're gonna have to. Look, I don't want to get you guys mixed up in this. If it all goes bugfuck, you can all blame me with a clear conscience."

Brendan stalked over to the desk, still giving him his most intimidating look short of demoning out on him. And while it was impressive and all (really), he was glad he was eating, because otherwise he would have found it hard not to laugh. "I'm not gonna accept that. Maybe they're kinda new at this, but I'm not, and I know you're up to something. Is this some kind of grand suicide squeeze on your part, is that it? You feel so bad about what happened you're gonna sacrifice yourself somehow to fix it?"

"I never sacrifice myself, just like I try not to volunteer for things. It only brings you trouble." He caught him glancing at the small forest of take out cartons on the desk, and asked, "You want somethin'?"

Although slightly sheepish at being caught, he never looked guilty. The kid had been around him and Bob too much. "Can I have the fortune cookie?"

"Sure, I don't like 'em." He grabbed the cellophane wrapped cookie and lobbed it up towards him. He caught it easily and tugged the wrapper off.

"Don't think I haven't noticed you haven't really answered my question."

"You're giving me too much credit. My plan is I really don't have one. If it was just the Organization, fine, but they're gonna sic Rogue and Saddiq on us, and that complicates matters immensely."

He noisily chewed the cookie, but it didn't stop him from responding between bites. "Piotr can take Saddiq. He's bigger, and metal."

"No he can't. Saddiq was trained from the age of five to be a Rajani palace guard. Do you know what that means? As a child, he was trained to take on adults. Being bigger or stronger than Saddiq doesn't matter at all, and his skin is just as impervious to harm as Piotr in full metal jacket. What you have there is a stalemate, until Saddiq kicks his ass - and he will, because he has been conditioned all his life to kill, while Piotr has not. Always bet on the man who will pull the trigger without hesitating; the one who blinks loses."

He considered that, and then his shoulders sunk as he nodded. He realized that that assessment, while cold blooded, was an accurate one. "You can take Saddiq. I mean - and no offense here - but you were trained as a killing machine too, right? And you have adamantium."

"Which is the only thing that cuts his skin. Right. But I'd have to kill him instantly to win the fight. You know what happened when the Org sent that assassin here. Saddiq took a near fatal injury - and he kept on fighting until the guy freaked and took off. Killing Saddiq is the only way to stop him, his training is too good, and I don't want to have to live with his death on my conscience. I'm not fighting him."

Brendan looked slightly lost, and Logan didn't blame him. "Who fights him, then?"

"No one. We do not engage Saddiq if we can at all avoid it. I'm hoping Bobby can freeze him, but we can't count on that, as the Organization might have a counter-agent."

"What about Rogue?"

"What about her? If you get within touching distance, you're gone. Again, Bobby could freeze her, but I expect she told them all about him. The only bright side is, if I'm guessing correctly, is that Xavier's powers are probably wearing off, so we don't have to worry about telepathic attacks. At least from her."

"What d'ya mean? I was told that time she almost absorbed you to death, she was like you for days."

"Different. If she took as much from Xavier as she took from me, he'd be dead. My guess is it was purely tactical - to take him out of the equation, and to get enough of his power to neutralize the school, but that was it. The Organization doesn't like telepaths unless they're under their complete control."

Brendan sank down in the chair before the desk, looking crestfallen, as if the enormity of what they were about to do had finally sunk in. "Logan ... we can't win. We can't even tie. Are we going there to get caught?"

He shook his head, shoving his food cartons aside. He was pretty much done anyways. "No, I'm not gonna allow that. But we might not be able to save them both. Not this time out, at least."

Brendan locked his gaze on him, penetrating and somehow plaintive. "Both? We can't even save ourselves. The scenario you've just painted is a total loss."

"Normally, yeah, but I haven't told you everything." The kid didn't reply to that, he just stared at him expectantly. "I have friends dropping by, ones they never could prepare for, ones who - unlike us - play to kill. This will throw them badly off their game, and that's what we have to exploit. As soon as you see an opening in their line, Bren, go for it."

He continued to stare at him, but his eyes got bigger. "What?"

"We use their equipment against them. Our only chance to save ourselves and Rogue and Saddiq is to hijack their equipment. You're a smart kid, you're like the son I never had - I know if anyone can figure their shit out, it's you."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "The son you never had?"

"I'm blowin' sunshine up your skirt. Play along."

"Oh, okay."

"When the time comes, tell the others that's what they have to do. Get control of the Organization's equipment, and avoid my "friends", who will not engage any of you, but might accidentally catch someone in their crossfire if they're not careful."

"Who are these friends? Helga? The Sisters?"

"No. They'll probably shoot the first green thing they see after Mirror Lake, and I think everyone's been exposed to the Sisters enough."

"You mean you have." He grinned knowingly. "They like you."

He rolled his eyes. "Lucky me."

"So who are these friends? Some kind of demon?"

"No. Let's just say I did a favor for their boss, and this is how he's paying me back. But you don't want to know these guys, ever, and by not knowing who they are, I'm savin' you all a world of trouble, and possibly from future subpoenas, so just leave it there, Bren. Walk away."

"Subpoenas? Are you serious? Who the hell are these guys - mobsters?"

He dropped the chopsticks in the garbage can, and swept two of the empty containers in after them. "Why would I associate with mobsters?" He managed to say it with a straight face. It was frightening how good a liar he could be.

He scoffed mildly, throwing in the empty fortune cookie wrapper. "Well, you wouldn't, I'm just sayin' …"

"Kid, forget it, trust me. I've told you of all the plan that actually exists. It's shitty, but let's keep that between ourselves, 'kay?"

He sighed, and glanced down at his fortune. It made him smirk, so Logan just had to ask, "What's it say?"

"You'll be going on a long journey." He crumpled it up into a tiny ball and shot it into the garbage can.

"Uncanny."

"It's not a long journey, it just feels that way." He got up to go, like Logan hoped he would, and he was gulping down the last of the overly sweet can of iced tea he found in the fridge when Brendan paused half way to the door, and turned to face him with a slightly puzzled look. "Wait. So we all charge the line when it falls, I get that. But what about Rogue and Saddiq? They aren't going to play along."

"Leave them to me."

"I thought you just said you weren't gonna fight them."

"Right."

The glare came back full force. "What the fuck are you planning? What are you gonna do?"

He had to give him something, or he wouldn't let this go. The problem with forming even a minor attachment to Brendan was he was only intimidated by him up to a point; the point collapsed when he went into full stubborn mode. "I'm going to determine how far gone they are, how deep the Organization has sunk their claws into them, and act accordingly."

"That's no answer at all."

"It's all I can give you. You'll just have to believe that I won't hurt them unless I have to. They're victims, not the enemy."

"It's not them I'm worried about," Brendan replied, giving him a suspicious look. But Logan kept his expression blank and just shrugged, unable to give him what he wanted. Reassurance? Nope, he was fresh out.

There were no guarantees in any of this, and they weren't going to know the real terrain of the battlefield until they got there. They would all be going in blind, deaf, and utterly senseless. All Logan really had to depend on was his own gut instincts, and the common knowledge that the Triad would, if they were following Wing's orders to letter, blast everything that looked even remotely like a soldier. It sucked, but at least that last bit of information was comforting.

Wing called him back less than ten minutes after Brendan had left, and let him know that things were good to go. He took a deep breath, and felt oddly calm. This would be a disaster, and yet he was strangely good with it. It was, he knew, what some psychologist would probably coin as the acceptance of death, the moment just before you died, when you knew you were going to die, and felt oddly at peace with it. But just because you accepted it didn't mean you were going down without a fight, and the organization were not going to win. Or, if somehow they did, they would pay very dearly for it.

He informed the others they were heading out, and he wanted them in uniforms, because they had bullet resistant material in them. That was true, but it was mainly so the Triad could identify them, although he didn't say that, and it didn't make him feel any less silly putting the damn thing on. He wasn't good with uniforms of any kind. Just the concept alone was enough to make him cringe.

Brendan and Kitty didn't have uniforms, so they had to make do with spare ones, but they found ones that more or less fit them. Kitty fit into Rogue's, although it hung off her like she was a coat hanger, which was startling, because Rogue wasn't big in any sense of the term; Kitty was just that slight.

Somehow he ended up as jet pilot, with Piotr as his co-pilot, and he remembered the last time they did this: Leonie. Shit, like he needed to remember that now. He felt an uncomfortable twinge in his gut, and a surge of anger, self-loathing, and self-pity that he managed to keep in check. But it was more emotional ammunition to use against the Organization. How dare they do such a thing to anyone ever, but especially a child.

(It was also a reminder that they had no qualms about killing kids if things weren't going their way.)

They were in the air and headed towards Alkali Lake at top speed when Piotr asked quietly, in Russian, "You do have a plan, don't you?"

So he finally noticed, did he? "We have to take over their equipment and use it against them," he replied, also in Russian. "I have some friends coming to help. When they show up, the shock should cause a break in the line. We go for it; it's the only chance we have."

He looked a little confused. "Friends?"

"Don't ask."

"What about … the kids?"

He knew he meant Rogue and Saddiq, there was just no way to make their names unrecognizable to prying ears. "Leave them to me."

"Hey, you know we know you're talking about this," Brendan interrupted. "Just 'cause you're talkin' Russian doesn't make it any less rude."

"You're still gonna have to live with it," Logan replied acerbically.

Bobby sighed audibly. "This is _so_ not fair."

"I know -" Kitty began, very hesitantly. " - a little Russian, but you guys were talking too fast."

"You know Russian?" Brendan sounded impressed.

There was a slight shifting of leather, and he figured Kitty had shrugged, shifted uncomfortably in her seat, or both. "My grandmother, on my mother's side, was a Russian Jew. She taught us kids a few words … but I don't know enough to have a conversation. I can say hello, goodbye, good night, things like that."

"Can you curse?" Logan asked.

"Well … not really …" The embarrassment was evident in her voice; he bet she was blushing. How adorable.

"Oh, come on? Not even a mild bastard or shithead? Asshole is universal."

Kitty laughed, and Bobby said, with a smile in his voice, "You really aren't like our other teachers."

"God, I'd hope not." And he really did, whenever he had a moment to think about it. You'd hope a teacher would have a little more sense, and a lot less desire to destroy.

7

The surprising thing was Weapon X didn't show up sooner. First had been expecting him to impulsively scramble up here without a moment's thought, since impulsivity was a particular downfall of his. So when it didn't happen, he wondered if he was even around.

But when they picked up an impossibly fast moving object on radar, coming straight towards their location, he knew they had finally shown up. About damn time.

The jet landed beyond a hill and a stand of trees, so he had to wait for them to crest a rise. He gave a pair of night vision goggles to Saddiq, so he could tell him who they'd be facing. There was something instinctively creepy about the kid - no, they didn't have to train him, but it was like he was a robot that had never even been bestowed with a rudimentary personality. It might have made him a good fighter, but it made him really poor company.

Weapon X was the first over the rise, sniffing the air and scanning the area, leaving himself deliberately open for sniper shots. It was a common technique of his, to try and draw fire, sparing his teammates. Just out of curiosity on what the kid would say, he asked, "Report."

"Logan, codename Wolverine," Saddiq dutifully reported, his voice a nearly inflectionless monotone. "Adamantium skeleton and claws, accelerated healing factor. Can be hurt, but not for long. Incredibly hard to kill. Has a broad but sketchy knowledge of a wide variety of fighting styles; he will not hesitate to hurt himself to also hurt an opponent. Pain and damage is little discouragement to him."

That sounded like it was straight out of a general alert. "Weaknesses?"

"Emotional; it can be used to tempt him into a stupid move. His teammates are also a weakness, as he can be lured out to help them rather than complete his objective."

"Excellent." And it was; a truly first rate assessment (no pun intended). Slightly robotic or not, the kid was good. He was a natural Organization asset. He kept watching Wolverine, who squinted into the wind - clearly aware they were here somewhere (for a brief moment, it looked like he was staring straight at him) - and then a rather muscular but otherwise bland looking man came up behind him and said something. He couldn't hear what was said from this distance, but Wolverine was clearly annoyed with him. "Report."

"Piotr Rasputin, codename Colossus. His skin becomes organic steel."

Well, that was a new one. "Weaknesses?"

"His eyes and internal organs don't become steel. Little to no martial arts training; relies on his own physical strength to win most battles. His skin is as vulnerable to adamantium as mine."

First chuckled. Adamantium was something they had no lack of, and as strong as he looked, he had someone much stronger on his team anyways. Titan would be thrilled to have someone she could beat to a pulp with at least some resistance.

Wolverine started leading the way down the hill, and his ragtag team started to follow, starting with Colossus. A tall, lean boy came after, followed by another boy, not as tall and a rather nauseating shade of blue-green, covered with small red spikes, and a very petit girl. That was it? No way. "Report."

"Bobby Drake, codename Iceman. Capable of freezing all water; can project his freezing abilities. Upper limit of power is currently unknown."

"Weaknesses?"

"Relies completely on his powers. No physical fighting training or skills, and no real battle experience."

That was a perfect weakness. All they needed to do was avoid his powers and engage him physically. He'd be completely lost. "The others?"

"Brendan Chambers, codename Demon. In that form, he has above average strength and is difficult to kill. He has an eidetic memory as well, which allows him to remember every single fighting technique he's ever been taught, and he's half demon."

"Pardon?"

Saddiq paused and had to consider a moment, which was odd for him. Did androids ever consider their words? "Non-mutant humanoid otherwise unspecified."

"Ah. Weaknesses?"

"Wolverine."

He didn't know what to make of that statement either. "What?"

"He's fond of Wolverine. If he's under siege, he will probably break off to help him."

Duncan laughed derisively from the back of the transport. "He's a fag? And in love with Weapon X? Jesus. How desperate is the old man to bring a queer along?"

"He's dangerous," Saddiq replied crisply. "Dismiss him at your own peril."

"He's a NMHOU," First reminded him, looking back at Duncan and giving him a cold glare. "They're all to be considered dangerous. Is that understood?"

Duncan sagged in his seat, frowning petulantly and glancing down at the adamantium plated floor like a sullen child. "Yes sir." Duncan Langois, codename Ballistic, was gifted with a great power - being able to shoot concussive blasts from his hands - that made him terribly useful in situations like this. But his personality left a lot to be desired, and it was that, along with a certain impetuousness that they were never able to rein in, that got him bounced out of the official Weapon X modification program. He was still a great weapon, but even he knew he'd never get into that upper echelon, which had made him bitter - and even more of a pain in the ass than before.

His frequent partner, Niemi Guerra, codename Titan, sat beside him, an unmoving mahogany sculpture with a Starbucks cup in her hand. Tall and basically lean, she never looked like much, unless you knew her powers allowed her to lift this transport up, with everyone in it, with one hand. Super strength alone was impressive, but the fact that she was a sociopath with no conscience at all was considered a great boon, at least in the field. Dealing with a person who didn't give a shit about anyone or anything didn't make her the most pleasant being to work with, though, which is why she was teamed up Duncan. He could be his wonderfully idiotic, assholic self, and she wouldn't care; and if he fucked up, she could pound everyone into the ground like nails, and save them the problem of a potentially messy clean up. And Duncan was too self-involved to realize he should be scared of her.

"Continue," First instructed Saddiq, returning his gaze to the bulletproof glass window of the transport. It had been hidden in a clutch of trees still standing by the waterline of the newly reborn and massive Alkali Lake, but still had a good view across the water, which had the only good landing spots for a jet.

"Kitty Pryde, no codename given. Becomes intangible."

"Intangible?"

"It's called phasing. When she phases, she can pass through any solid object, and they can pass through her, with no harm done."

Another new one. "Huh. Weaknesses?"

"Plentiful. No field experience, when her power is in use she can cause no harm to anyone, has rudimentary fighting skills but little strength to back it up. " Saddiq lowered his binoculars, and stared off into the distance, clearly lost in thought. "Bringing her along makes no sense. She adds nothing to the team, and can be seen as nothing but a liability."

"She was my friend," Rogue said/ She was leaning against the wall closest to Saddiq, arms crossed over her chest, looking bored. She had personality where Saddiq lacked, but it was a teenage personality, which meant it wasn't always the most pleasant to deal with. "Maybe she insisted on comin' along."

"But she adds nothing to the team," Saddiq argued. "Tactically, she's a grievous error. Why would Wolverine make such an obvious mistake? It doesn't make sense."

"Maybe the old man's slipping," Duncan suggested.

Saddiq shook his head. "His team is also far too small and inexperienced. Wolverine wouldn't make a mistake this large and obvious. It doesn't fit his profile."

First had to agree with the kid there. Weapon X might have gone soft and crazy again, but the man was a born fighter; mindfucked or not, he was still good for the game. This was pathetic; even a terminal fuck up like Duncan wouldn't do as badly as this. "He's up to something. There must be another team. Keep scanning."

"If Bob's on the way, we're all screwed," Rogue pointed out, none too helpfully.

Suddenly Vernon, his scan tech, reported, "Sir, the radar just went off line."

First turned back towards him, feeling a coldness grip his stomach. Here it was. "We're being jammed?"

"Looks that way."

"Are there mutants capable of jamming radar at that damn school of yours?" He asked Saddiq.

The boy had to think about it once more, and ended up shaking his head. "I'm not sure. Possibly."

Damn it. "Deploy, and stick to the plan, but be ready for interruptions - there's a second mutant team out there, probably flanking."

"Yes sir," Saddiq said, and put the binoculars aside before pulling open the door, letting in the cool night air. Saddiq went out first, followed by Rogue and Duncan, with a seemingly unconcerned Niemi the last person out.

He had to give Weapon X some credit, but there was no way in hell his plan - whatever it was - was going to work. He was probably just still too fucked in the head to realize he was doomed.

* * *

If he could put aside all the bad memories this place engendered, it was eerily beautiful.

It looked like a peaceful valley, with clusters of majestic pines and firs grouped around the fringes of a wide lake, which was as dark as onyx beneath the pale royal blue sky of early night. The stars were just starting to come out, the moon as bright as a spotlight in the sky, reducing what little open grounds there was to a sea of shadows. The mountain ridge was a saw toothed barrier on their far right, a deeper black against the sky. It would have been a beautiful meditation spot if not for the memories of mutilation and murder, and the fact that there was a ton of Organization people out there, using the darkness to their supposed advantage. But his eyes had adapted to the low light level, and he could see pretty clearly. It wasn't vampire vision, but it was probably better than Human average.

"I thought there'd be snow," Bobby commented quietly. He almost sounded disappointed.

"Oh yeah - Canada has snow three hundred and sixty five days a year," Logan replied.

"You forgot to add eh," Brendan prompted. "Where are the polar bears?"

Logan chuckled, and Bobby protested, "Oh, come on, I know it isn't always snowing in Canada! It's just this is the Rockies, right? Aren't they always snowy, kinda?"

"In the higher elevations, yeah. We ain't that high up." There might have been no snow on the ground, but that wasn't to say it wasn't chilly; it was probably in the upper thirties, just warm enough that their breath didn't turn into clouds of vapor, but that was about it. The ground crunched beneath their feet, but from debris and dead leaves, ground cover gone dry.

"Are they here?" Bobby whispered. "I don't see anything."

"Yeah, we're being watched; they're across the lake." He was now starting to see furtive movements among the trees, people clinging to the shadows in spite of the presence of night. They knew him, they knew what his senses allowed, and they weren't taking any chances.

"I think I can smell people," Brendan agreed. "I mean, other than us."

"Across the lake?" Piotr repeated. "How do we get to them? We're sitting ducks over here."

"Bobby, can you freeze it?" Logan wondered.

"The whole lake? No, I don't think so; it's way too much."

"How about a path?"

Bobby thought about that a moment, studying the inky lake. "Yeah, I think I can do that."

"All the way through," Logan told him. "Make it deep enough to sustain our weight and take a couple of bullets without dissolving completely."

"Bullets?" Bobby repeated, sounding suddenly very wary. "They're gonna shoot at us?"

Logan could hear it now, but doubted the others could. A distant noise, the sound of rotors slicing through the air, coming from the south-southwest. He couldn't quite suppress the smile, but he tried to keep it from his voice. "Well, they're gonna shoot at someone."

A figure walked out of the darkness of the woods on the other side of the lake, a shape small and familiar, and Logan knew who it was before she spoke. "Hey there, Logan," Rogue shouted. "This is your last chance, you know."

They all paused, and he heard Bobby whisper a plaintive "_Marie_" under his breath, but Logan had been expecting something like this and didn't let it faze him. The Organization played so dirty it actually gave low down dirty bastards a bad name. "Last chance for what?"

"Surrender to us, and we'll let your little friends walk away unharmed. You ain't gonna get a better deal."

He smirked, shaking his head. Even if it were true - which he knew from experience it wasn't - he'd never take it. "I don't think so, darlin'." He grabbed Bobby by the arm, and whispered in his ear, "Start the path now. Don't get distracted." He then shouted, out across the lake, "Where are the big guys, hon? Send 'em out. I wanna talk to the bosses."

He heard Rogue scoff, as Bobby knelt down beside the edge of the lake. "Nuh -uh, Logan. You know it doesn't work like that. We're callin' the shots here."

There was a doubling of the rotor noise, this time coming from the north-northwest - a classic pincer formation. An oldie, but a goodie. The others must have heard it now, because he saw people breaking formation, revealing their hiding position in the shadows as they looked towards the Southern quadrant of the sky, where the silhouette of a sleek black helicopter - without its running lights, almost invisible in the night - suddenly loomed up over the mountain line like a prehistoric vulture. He sensed the shock in the others behind him, but he didn't look; he didn't need to. He knew precisely who the party crashers were. "Are you sure you're calling the shots?" He asked, now shouting even louder to be heard over the rotors. "'Cause I think you just lost control."

And that's the exact moment that the fun began.


	6. Part 6

Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw a small but inexplicable pair of lights swelling to life in the darkness of the trees, but before anything could happen (someone powering up?), a missile shot from the visible helicopter, as a passenger shot a surface to surface rocket from the hold.

There were shouts from the ground to move as it screamed in and hit something, possibly a concealed transport, causing a small but impressive explosion that made the troops scramble, both for a better position and a better shot.

But as soon as the missile had impacted, the chopper opened up with its rail guns.

Logan couldn't help but laugh as the heavy duty slugs tore through the trees and chewed up the ground in huge clumps. He should have known from his experience in Hong Kong that the Triad had access to a lot of military hardware that frankly it shouldn't have. He thought that was for China/Hong Kong alone, but he should have known better. You didn't get to be a world reviled mafia by sticking to the rule book.

Rogue was looking up at the chopper and the slaughter going on behind her in the woods with obvious horror, as surprised as everyone else. Did they think because she knew him, because he was imprinted in her psyche like a hangover you couldn't forget, that she knew all his tactics, knew everything he would do? No offense to Rogue, but she might have been him, for all intents and purposes, but she still didn't know him, not like she should. Nobody knew him like that, except maybe Bob; he didn't want anyone to know him like that. He didn't even want to know that side of himself, the thing he kept hidden because he couldn't trust himself to let it go. He couldn't scare away the closest things he had to friends by showing them how stygian his "dark side" actually was.

But the Organization? Yeah, they should have known better. If they wanted to sink into the gutter, he could do so too, and they should have known that. They wanted to fuck around with him? They should have known he would cut a deal with any devil to make them choke on their own blood.

Yeah, playing with Xavier's crew, he tried to be good. But Xavier wasn't here, they made sure of that. Mistake number one.

Lights shot out from the forest, aiming for the helicopter, but it swayed in the air and missed, suggesting the pilot on the stick had extremely good reflexes - mutant, or just really high on some form of speed? Either way, the mutant who fired the blasts - and he was sure that's what it was; he was pretty sure it was that guy who shot concussive blasts that he first encountered in Montana - was sent scrambling for new cover, as the blasts had revealed his location, and the rail guns turned his way. Figures rappelled from the open hold of the 'copter, clad in ninja black and seemingly unarmed ... seemingly. Logan wouldn't bet on it.

"Holy fucking hell!" Piotr cursed over the rattle of guns and pops of explosions, but at least he did it in Russian. Logan caught reflected light in the corner of his eye, and figured he'd gone metal. He reverted to English to ask, "Who the hell are these people? Do you know the Canadian army!"

"These are bad men," he told him honestly. "The worst of the worst. I figured they'd have a lot in common with the Organization."

Although he was cringing from the shots (none of which had come over here yet; the troops were busy with the chopper, and the guys on the chopper were tightly focused on their quarry), Bobby had completed the path of ice across the water, which gleamed whitely in the dim light. (Thanks to the fires across the lake, the light was growing all the time.) It was maybe six feet wide, so it wasn't too narrow, and was solidly anchored on the far bank; he could see a thick shelf of ice on the dirt, melding into it like a metal clip. He patted Bobby on the shoulder, which made him jolt. "Good job, kid," he said, then looked back at the startled faces of everyone else. "Everybody stay behind me; there could be ricochets. And one of the mutants they brought with 'em shoots concussive blasts; avoid him if you can. Now, remember your jobs. Avoid Rogue and Saddiq, and get the equipment. Let's go."

He started across the ice bridge at a run, the surface very slick but not so slick that he couldn't handle it, and he was half way across when he noticed that someone else had seen it too.

There was a woman standing on the opposite shore, tall and dark skinned, her black hair cut so close to her scalp you could call it a buzz cut. She seemed to radiate disdain, although she was smiling in a sickly, angry way.

He'd seen her before, hadn't he? Where had he seen her before?

He remembered - she was the woman who picked up a car like it was a Dixie cup - just as she brought her foot down on the end of the path. The ice cracked and the whole path shook, but it held - well, for the moment. She hadn't expected it to be as thick as it was. But Logan had to stop to keep from losing his balance.

"Kitty, to me!" He shouted.

She was a good kid. He could smell the fear coming off her like sour milk, but she appeared right behind him. "Yeah?"

He grabbed her hand, and said, "Phase, and run."

Although her look was briefly startled, understanding seemed to bloom in her dark eyes, and she nodded as Logan started running again, this time with Kitty in tow, holding on to his hand. "Take a breath," she warned.

"Just what do you hope to accomplish, Wolverine," the woman said. He didn't know her name, but mentally he dubbed her "Hulkess", since clearly strength was her power. "You know I can kick your ass."

Distracted with their charge, she didn't bother to hit the path again, just curled her hands into fist and stepped out to meet them. She swung up in an uppercut that would have taken his head clear off his neck ... if he had been solid.

Kitty had waited until the last handful of seconds, and he barely knew when she had phased them both. He just felt an odd sort of numbness come over him, the coldness radiating from the ice suddenly still, and then there was the odd sensation of Hulkess's fist passing clear through him, like he was just a cloud.

She had expected contact, so when she didn't make it she over balanced, and barely corrected in time to avoid falling in the lake as he and Kitty ran straight through her, like she was just a mirage.

It was almost a feeling, and it was almost odd, but not nearly as odd as it was for Hulkess, who sucked in a breath as if punched. It was probably just from the fact that she was braced for collision, although Logan knew from experience that having Kitty pass through you was deeply disconcerting, like a temperate breeze passing through your internal organs. It wasn't nearly as pleasant as it sounded.

As soon as they were through and past her, Kitty phased them back in, which he could tell simply by feeling the cold air swarm around them. The Hulkess spun to glare at them, and before he could taunt her for not paying attention at the briefing (surely there must have been one), she froze - literally.

Ice crystals glittered on her dark skin like a diamond sheen, and she was stuck in her belligerent posture, stuck in a hostile moment. Brendan shoved past her, knocking her into the lake, where she bobbed on the surface like an a piece of jetsam. Brendan looked down at her with obvious disdain. "What was her deal?"

Logan could only shrug. "Anger issues."

The second helicopter swooped in low over the lake, and dropped something large and heavy out of the hold; they could all hear it thud on the ground somewhere slightly Northeast of their general position. As Bobby and Piotr came over the bridge, Piotr asked, "What's that?"

"End game." Yes, it was cryptic, but it had to be. He didn't want the bad guys to try and find a way to use it on them, or otherwise just fuck it up.

Kitty was bent over, hands on her knees, panting for breath. "You run too damn fast."

And here he thought he was going too slow just so Kitty could keep up. Maybe she wasn't used to running on ice.

The gunfire continued in the woods, as the troops who had rappelled from the chopper were armed as well, and the stink of cordite and burning metal and wood was making his ability to smell anything quickly a moot point. His eyes were watering already from the acrid stench, which felt like knitting needles being jabbed into his sinuses with each breath. The fire in the middle of the woods looked like it was getting worse too, the smoke pouring up into the sky and obscuring the moon. Soon it would be too dangerous for any of them to be here, but they still had some time.

He looked around for Rogue, but she was gone … for now. He didn't expect it to last for long. Flames made the shadows seem to dance, move like Humans, and it fooled him often enough that he almost missed genuine movement as Saddiq emerged from the trees. This was just what he was afraid of, that they'd be so convinced of Saddiq's innate deadliness they'd send him out to confront them, and that they'd be so afraid of hurting him they wouldn't fight him.

He stood there glaring at them all, no recognition or truly conscious thought evident on his stony face, as his hands curled into fists at his side, and he seemed to focus his gaze square on him. "I always wanted to fight you, old man," he said, his voice inflectionless, and yet somehow still edged with the slightest bit of contempt. "I always wanted to show you the flaws in your technique."

Oh, that was cute. He knew Saddiq was technically a better fighter than him, but he was insane, so he felt that gave him a natural edge. Still, Saddiq would be prepared for absolutely any reaction, so he'd have to do something he wouldn't expect. And what would that be?

Avoid a fight? Run away? Yeah, that sounded good; pretty improbable. He'd never see it coming.

But before he could play the coward card, Bobby reacted, holding out his hand to freeze Saddiq where he was; you could see the ice crystals in the air, forming between them like a bridge. And a blast of light came out of the woods, shattering the beam of ice and making Bobby duck and cover as shards of ice like glass slivers rebounded on him.

Shit - concussive blast guy.

He shot another blast at Bobby, but Brendan tackled him and got him clear, so the blast hit the dirt and threw up a huge cloud of dust. He changed focus, and Logan saw the shot headed for him before Piotr stepped in the way. The blast hit him hard, enough that he seemed to lose all his breath in a grunt, and he was moved back an inch or two, but otherwise didn't budge.

"Oh, you think you can take it?" Blaster guys said tauntingly. His hair was blond, looking molten in the reflection of distant flames, his eyes glistening like rain slicked glass. Something about his was frustratingly familiar, and that was beyond their subsequent encounters in Montana and New York. He had once seen that man _before_ …but the how and why of the before eluded him. But he was Organization beyond a doubt, a bad memory. "Let's see about that."

This guy, whoever he was, had managed to go toe to toe with Cyclops' power for a while, before he started to fade (Scott would naturally win that fight; he didn't generate his power, where Blondie clearly did. He couldn't generate forever, while all Scott had to do was not blink). He could, at full strength, send Piotr sailing straight into the lake. It probably wouldn't hurt him - he was still metal - but it was an implacable law of physics; a good sized explosion could level a bunker, and certainly dislodge a boulder, no matter how much it weighed.

Logan waited until the glow in the palm of his hands was almost unbearably bright, which seemed to reach its peak just before he fired. He grabbed Piotr's arm and used a leg sweep to take him down to the ground as the energy passed just over them, leaving a hot wind in its wake, the light as blinding as the sun.

"Shit," Piotr breathed, forgetting to use Russian.

"He's mine!" Saddiq snapped angrily, and once Logan blinked away the afterimages left by the barely missed blast, he looked up to see if Saddiq would attack Blondie. That would be a solution to their problem - well, one of them.

But everyone had forgotten about Kitty. Blondie - who had clearly paid attention at the briefing - ignored her, which turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life. She ran past him, phased out, and he let her go without a second glance, but she did a u-turn once she was passed him, briefly disappearing in the woods.

When she re-emerged, it was simply as a pair of ghostly arms reaching through the thick trunk of the Lodgepole pine behind him, and her hands must have been temporarily solid, because she grabbed one of Blondie's arms. "Hey," he exclaimed, startled, but was unable to pull away before Kitty had pulled his arm through the tree - and let him go.

He tried yanking his arm out, but his left arm was now buried up to the shoulder in the trunk of the tree. His hand was sticking out the other side, but it was quite effectively useless, as he could only fire in two directions, and one of those was straight at the ground. "What the fuck..!" He shouted, annoyance turning quickly to alarm as he kept trying - and failing - to pull his arm out.

Kitty just looked at Saddiq. It wasn't even angry, just resigned. "I don't want to hurt you, Sid," she said. "But I will if I have to."

Saddiq looked mildly alarmed, and justifiably so. He couldn't hurt her while she was phased; but if she chose to phase out a certain part of herself, she could obviously do something to him. Stick him in a tree, perhaps, bury him into the ground up to his waist, wedge him inside a rock.

He chose the better part of valor, retreating quickly until he could regroup and come up with a strategy to deal with her, and Brendan laughed. "All right!" He exclaimed. "Kitty, you kick ass!"

She looked down at the ground and colored slightly, proud but a little embarrassed, and Logan couldn't help but smile. He knew she had potential - and she was definitely a girl he could train. She had a level head and great instincts.

"Phase!" He shouted at her, as he saw Blondie raise his right hand, the one he could still use, although in a greatly limited fashion. She must have, as the blast he fired passed harmlessly through her and kicked up another clod of dirt.

"Damn it, you little bitch!" He snarled angrily. "What the fuck have you done to me!" He then put his right hand on the trunk, beneath where his arm was held captive, and fired.

Even before he did it, Logan knew it was a colossal mistake. Blondie, whoever he was, was clearly as smart as a sock full of nickels.

The blast shot a huge hole through the trunk; so large, in fact, he had effectively cut the tree down. He only realized what he had actually done when the sixty foot tree started to topple, and pull him and his trapped arm with it. "Fuck fuck _fuck _!" He screamed, as the tree fell over, deeper into the woods, and dragged him down to the ground. See, if he was going to free himself, he should have shot a hole through the top of the tree first, but that would have required some knowledge on how gravity works, and he was going to go out on a limb and guess that that just wasn't Blondie's forte.

Piotr helped him up to his feet, grimacing in such a way that it was clear he was trying very hard not to laugh. "Please tell me he's the brains of the operation."

"Naw, I don't think so. But wouldn't it be great if he was?"

Kitty pointed off into the woods behind her, and said, "He went that way. Should I follow?"

"No. Let's all head out, see if we can find their base camp. Well, what's left of it."

He let Brendan and Kitty lead the way, but he nudged Piotr and jerked his head over at their fallen friend in the tree, and he understood and nodded. So they lingered behind, waiting until the kids were a couple of meters ahead before closing in on Blondie.

He had been too busy trying to squirm away from the tree and get a better angle in which to shoot it to notice them until it was too late. He looked up once their shadows fell over them, but Piotr was quick to step on his free right hand, grinding the palm down into the dirt. He squeaked in pain, and Logan crouched down so Blondie could get a good look at him, and his cocked fist. "Okay, you know the drill. Tell us who all is here, and where your base camp is, and you live to get made a fool of another day."

In spite of the pain, Blondie sneered up at them. "Fuck you, Wolverine. What are you gonna do - cut me?"

Despite the acrid smoke, Logan knew he was bluffing; he could pick up the sour undertone of fear this close to him. But he decided to really ratchet up the fear, just because he struck him as not only an idiot, but a savage idiot, the very worst kind. He moved his fist down to right in front of his crotch, and said, "Which are you more attached to, your right or left ball?"

His eyes bugged out, almost all white. "Y-you wouldn't dare! You're bluffing."

"Let's find out. Piotr, your choice."

"Right," he responded quickly, keeping his voice flat. He was good at this.

"Okay, right it is."

"Wait!" Blondie shouted, nearly convulsing with fear. He quickly told them all they had asked for, adding a few details they hadn't requested, but were still good to know anyways.

Even though he did talk, for a moment he considered castration for the good of the Human race - did they need more idiots like him around? There were already too many as it was - but Piotr was here, and besides, doing that to any guy, even a dumbass like him, seemed a little extreme. So once he told them all they needed to know, he punched him in the face instead; not hard enough to fracture his skull, but hard enough to break his nose and render him unconscious.

He told Piotr to take the lead, as he was more bulletproof than Brendan, and Logan took up the rear, keeping his eyes open and his senses as attuned as they could be the closer they got to the painfully acrid scents. Now that they knew Kitty had offensive capabilities, and that the team had good skills in spite of being mostly rookies, they would work to single them out, split them off and pick them off one by one. Or at least that's what he'd do if he was in their shoes. So he was getting ready to take out the first potential threat; he thought he knew who they would send out.

He was wrong, or maybe they'd just encountered them fleeing from the Triad, but either way a brace of startled troops crashed through the woods and almost stumbled right into them. They all paused, startled to come face to face with one another, and before the seven soldiers could aim their weapons, Logan launched himself into them with an angry roar.

As he expected, they ignored the others and focused on him, converging on him like a rugby scrum. It didn't matter.

He made short work of them all, breaking crucial bones with full force kicks to the pressure points on the legs, breaking noses and jaws with fists and well placed elbows to the face, dropping them to the ground gagging with sharp shots to the throats. When he popped his claws, it was to shred their weapons and their body armor, and to tear their skin shallowly but painfully, to make them bleed enough to scare them. Something in him wanted a good, dirty fight, something to burn off all this adrenaline, but before he knew it it was over; he was standing panting over the group of fallen men, some of whom were squirming and groaning in pain, and others who were still, as the unconscious never complained. (That was the good thing about hem.)

He found the kids all staring at him, mostly in mute horror, tense as if they were afraid he'd turn on them next. Finally, Brendan said, "That never fails to be really frightening."

Logan could only shrug, and he retracted his bloody claws. As much as he liked to pretend he was something more, he was as much a constructed weapon as Saddiq was, and it was just a damn shame that the Organization thought a mental breakdown or two meant he still couldn't perform up to specs. In some respects, it had just made him more dangerous than before.

Piotr continued to lead them deeper into the woods, headed for base camp (was it still there? Even Blondie wasn't sure if the Triad had hit it or not), as the gunfire became more sporadic and farther away. Probably most of the troops had been thinned out, and somehow he doubted that they had won out over the enemy they hadn't expected. The fire was getting larger, though, fiercer, and the continued crackling of the flames was now beginning to sound like an approving audience. Soon they'd all be forced to flee, winners and losers alike, although he wasn't sure there could be any clear winner here.

In spite of the choking smoke that was starting to make them all cough, Logan caught the slightest trace of perfume on a cross breeze. He quickly moved up the line and grabbed Bobby's arm, briefly pulling him aside. He whispered to him, pitching his voice just low enough that no one else could hear, "Could you freeze me to someone else?"

Bobby glanced at him, his blue eyes wide in surprise. "What?"

"Can you? I don't mean freeze me solid or anything, just make it so someone can't pull away from me. Can you do it?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. But I don't understand -"

"In a minute, I'm gonna charge someone. I need you to freeze me to them the instant I reach them so they can't pull away. Okay?"

He blinked rapidly, trying to assimilate it all, and figure out what he was going to do. Logan bet he wouldn't, not until it was too late. "Uh, yeah, okay. But who -"

"Just do it, no matter who it is. Rogue's and Saddiq's lives may depend on this working. Got it?"

Now he looked really curious, but he wasn't sure how to ask in a way that would guarantee anything but an evasive response. He nodded, and started to ask, one more time, "But what -"

It didn't matter; he didn't have a chance to finish his question. There was rustling in the brush, too close for comfort, and Logan bet it was a mistake, a stumble, as the only way they could have gotten a jump on them was by stealth. Bobby looked sharply over his shoulder at the noise, and Logan told him, "On my word," before charging the spot.

Rogue had showed herself, pulling her gloves off in a threatening manner, her expression as hard as rock. He was glad; this would probably make it easier.

He dove for her, popping the claws of his right hand, and shouted, "Now Bobby!"

At the last second, Rogue seemed to realize something was wrong, the briefest flash of panic scudded behind her eyes, but by then it was too late to turn away. Logan slammed into her, his claw punching through her left shoulder just beneath the collarbone (avoiding anything vital), as he also grabbed the side of her face with his left hand. His initial plan was to wound her so she had no choice but to hang on; Bobby was just extra insurance.

He assumed he did his job, as he was aware of coldness around them, but just barely. The contact with Rogue was as harsh and brutal as it always was, like one hundred thousand volts was ripping straight through him from head to foot, burning him from the inside out, and they were both screaming, her from the pain of the injury, him from her stripping away his powers, but in spite of it all he touched his forehead to hers, grabbing the back of her head to ensure direct contact as strands of ice connected them to one another like conjoined twins. She was trying to pull away, he could feel the tension in her body, but Bobby's ice was holding them fast. Even he was trying to reflexively pull away from the pain, but he had no choice either.

With the last conscious bit of energy he had, he whispered to her, "Northeast shore."

He hoped this worked. But as he lapsed into blessedly pain free darkness, he had absolutely no idea if his gamble would pay off, or if he just made it worse for the survivors.


	7. Part 7

8

Did she really think she could win a will contest with him? Did she know him at all?

Tired of waiting for Jean to get her bullshit in order, Bob stripped down to his undies (originally silk boxers, but he changed them with a thought to a bright orange speedo, just to piss her off - was there anything worse than a man in a florescent marble bag?) and went for a swim in the water. It was blood warm and not so much salty as coppery, which again brought blood to mind. It wouldn't have surprised him if it was just that, the plasma of some massive being. He sang to himself as he let himself float on the surface, not just to entertain himself, but because it would drown her out. "It's your right and your ability, to become my perfect enemy …"

She had been bitching at him for some time, when he started stripping and when he dove in the lilac water, but finally, when he surfaced after a particularly long dive (how weird was it that there was nothing at the bottom of this "ocean"?), he found her glaring at him from the edge of the shore, hands placed firmly on her hips. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing? Do you think this is a vacation?"

He treaded water and stared back at her placidly, his headache receding. He would get his power back long before her, but that was the difference between being born "divine" and being born Human - the Human would always be at a disadvantage, simply because they had an actual physical form. "I think - no, I know - you're bullshitting me, so until you're in a mood to be honest, I'm having a swim. You should try it sometime. Very relaxing."

Her glare was unrelenting, but it only made him chuckle. Was that it? Did she think that was going to work? You didn't get to be as old as he was and not be able to take such a minor, inconsequential thing.

She turned away in disgust, but she paused on her way up the beach, shoulders sagging as she realized that she had no choice but to be honest with him sooner or later. "Osiris."

"What?"

"I think I pissed off Osiris."

At least she finally admitted it. "I know."

She looked back at him sharply, something like murder in her eyes. "You knew? Then why - "

"Honey, Xiuh was dead; he offed himself, or at least attempted to. For gods, it sometimes isn't nearly as permanent as they'd wish it to be. Sy, being not just a death god but a prissy, vindictive one, was probably the only one stupid enough to bring the crazy fire god back." He started to walk towards the shore, figuring his chance for a good swim was now over. "He knew that, being an avatar god, he would be able to pull Cammy's powers away from you. Of course, Xiuh probably underestimated the changes Cammy's already wrought in you."

Her eyes were wide, almost Human in their general surprise. "Did - did you just walk on water?"

He looked down. He was now on the shore again, the gentle tide lapping at his ankles. "Possibly. It's an alternate dimension, hon - we can do whatever we want." Of course, if she was in her right mind totally, she would have known he could master the realm of the physical in almost any dimension, because - and there it was again - he was technically energy. Energy didn't respond to gravity in the same way as the more corporeal.

She took that in, and he could see her clearly decide to just let this one go. "What do you mean the changes in me?"

He shrugged expansively, holding out his arms to encompass the beach and the whole wide world, then he started to get dressed. He willed himself dry before stepping into his trousers. "Seriously? Come on, Jean, it's just us. No need to play dumb."

"Don't you dare call me dumb!"

"I didn't; I said you were playin' it. Do you really think you're the same person you were before Cammy took you over?"

"Yes, of course I am."

He scoffed, pulling his shirt on. He changed the printing on the front to read "_I spent all my money on beer and whores_", mainly just to tick her off. "What's that Earth phrase? 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely'. You know, that's true in any dimension."

She crossed her arms over her chest, hips locked, anchoring her to the ground in a very stubborn posture. "Are you admitting to being corrupt?"

That made him snicker. He just knew she was going to say that. "Of course I'm corrupt. Think how worse I'd be if I actually had absolute power."

"Don't you?"

"Gods no. The Powers That Be neutered me, for lack of a better term. I'm powerful, but they can all kick my ass; they made sure of that, believe me. I'm gonna be on parole for ... well, hell, if it's up to them, until they destroy me."

"Is there any way to hasten that?"

Again, that made him laugh. He found her bile and hatred pretty funny, because while he deserved it from many people, he didn't deserve it from her. Well, not really. "You're out of control, Jean. And if even head up his ass Sy can see that, you're in real trouble."

Anger flared in her eyes, almost bringing the quiescent flames back to life. But she refused to take the bait. "Why were you kicked out of the PTB's, Bob? Couldn't they stand you either?"

Did she really think he was going to take the bait? Well, there was room for a lesson here. "You know what it means to be a god, sweetheart? It means you can't have any humanity. And please note, I didn't say don't - I said can't. You run in a different circle, you're on another level, and they are like pets to us. Loyal dogs and good cats we scratch on the head, ones we sometimes give a special treat to, or ones we kick for no reason at all except we're pissed off and we need to take it out on something. Generally we just ignore them; we hear the barking peripherally, but it's never loud enough to be worthy of our attention. We live on a different plane; they might as well be some primitive alien life forms."

She raised her chin slightly, as if trying to look down her nose at him in the most literal sense. "So maybe you're inhuman, but -"

"No, you've just driven past the point. You know what my weakness is? I'm too Human. I find the pleasures of the flesh far more intoxicating than the intangibility of the non-corporeal. It makes me primitive and offensive to most gods, a disgusting sort of mongrel, an embarrassment."

"I see their point."

"I bet you do. You're more like them than I've ever been."

At first she looked flattered, but then the confusion set in. "Wait - what's that supposed to mean?"

"Ask yourself this: would the old Jean have left Scott to die? Would she have fucked around with Logan's feelings because it was fun? Would she switch sides capriciously because she was bored and had absolutely nothing better to do? You had a dark side you repressed madly, but come on - this is ridiculous."

Now she was furious. The anger was coming off her in waves, and he bet if she had her powers right now, she'd have tried to blow up his head. "You hypocritical piece of shit -"

"How am I a hypocrite? I'm done things I regret in my life - all of them - and I do my best to atone for them where I can. How do you atone to Scott when he's dead? Have you told Logan yet that you really loved fucking around with him, but you're never gonna feel the same way about him that he feels about you? You've done nothing but act like a perfect ass since you took up Cammy's mantle; in other words, you've been acting like a perfect god. Maybe this was the big break you've been waiting for all your life."

She actually started stalking towards him, but he materialized a beer bottle in his hand, and she stopped, clearly weighing the odds. He was re-acquiring his powers much faster now, and as far as he could tell, she was steady state with her miniscule amount. There'd be no fight here. It would be a joke, and she would have no hope of winning. But the hate still made her eyes burn like embers. "You _dare_ to bring that up? How would you feel if I mentioned your son?"

Actually, he had more than one, but he knew exactly which one she was referring to, and he took a pull off his beer to hide his instinctive grimace. Well, everybody had to have at least one big, bad skeleton in their closet; this was doubly true when it came to families. "Mention him all you want. I did what I had to do to protect others. I'm sorry it came to that, but it did, and there was nothing else could be done. I don't quite see this as equivalent to freeing Kali to kill me and take out Logan."

"Killing Logan was never part of the deal!" She exploded, throwing her arms out violently to encompass their limited little world. "And I put that bitch away as soon as I realized that killing Logan was the only thing we could do to keep you off Earth for a while. So don't you dare tell me I don't care about my friends, because I do."

"Tell that to Scott."

"Why don't you tell Logan how you're conditioning him to kill me."

That made him raise an eyebrow at her, in what he hoped was his most Spock like fashion. "Are you barmy? Wait, yes, you are. I'm not conditioning him to do shit."

"I've seen many possible outcomes, Bob. And in slightly more than half, you kill me in Logan's body … or try."

He shook his head, belatedly remembering to dry his hair. "Don't you know anything about quantum physics? Simply by observing the event, you change it. That's why so called "prophecies" and foreseeing are so bloody unreliable."

"I saw multiple possibilities, multiple branches off the chain."

"Irrelevant. It's all changed. Nothing is set in stone. It always bugs the piss out of me when people talk about destiny, 'cause I know there's no such thing. Most people make their own, whether they realize it or not."

She could have been a statue for all she moved, a statue of a vengeful and alluring goddess, much like Kali herself. "Logan would never hurt me. Don't you think I know him?"

He smirked and looked away, wiping the cool condensation of the beer bottle across his forehead. He wasn't really warm, but it hid his face for a moment. When he looked back at her, his gimlet eyed stare matched hers. "If you knew him as you claimed, you'd know as much as he loves you, if you threatened harm to everyone, he would do what he had to do. Logan and I have that much in common. I loved my son, I still do, but someone had to the pull the trigger, and I was the only one who could do it. If push comes to shove, it'll kill him, but he'll shove back. And if you doubt that, you'll deserve what you get."

"Camaxtli made him believe he did it once. He's convinced himself he can't do it again."

"He's wrong." He took another swig of his beer, never breaking his stare, before he told her, "You want something Jean, so spit it out already. We're running out of time."

Her look was so frosty he bet she was keeping his beer cold. "Fine. You want to cut to the chase? I want to get my powers back. And you're going to do it for me."

9

Awareness came with all the subtlety of a bullet train slamming through his forebrain, and he collapsed as he heard the sounds of ice breaking (?) and people's voices, a nattering of crows as he tried to put together what had just happened to him.

Him? Wait a minute … she wasn't a man.

(Was she?)

She grabbed her head and tried to make sense of the turmoil inside her own brain, vaguely aware of the other people's voices. "… I don't think he's breathing …"

"Why the hell did you do that?"

"He told me to! You gonna tell him no?"

Then there was another voice, loud and clear: _Get up._

Logan, deep inside her own head. Unless … was it her thoughts, just sounding like Logan? She didn't know, and truth be told, it may have been the most minor of differences. Even when she forgot everything she had pulled from his mind (always a relief), every now and again she'd have these dark, cynical thoughts that sounded more like him than her. Or maybe that was just her excuse. _Kid, get up now, head for the Northeastern shore, before this thing in your head reasserts control. Go. Go now. _

The thing in her head …? What was he - or her; again, it was hard to tell the difference - saying? There was a pain deep inside her brain, like there was something trying to eat through the soft tissue, but she realized as an afterthought her body was responding to his (?) insistent thoughts already, standing up and using the trunk of a near by tree to haul herself up even before she opened her eyes.

The scene before her was odd, and yet comforting as she expected it. A dark forest, lit up periodically with the growing fire in the far distance, and Piotr, Bobby, Brendan and Kitty gathered around the fallen form of Logan, who was laying insensate on the ground, chunks of ice melting around him, scattered about like broken crystals. Piotr was on his knees beside him, head on his chest, clearly listening for a heartbeat, and she thought perhaps she should stay and make sure he wasn't actually dead. How long had she absorbed him this time?

_Fuck me, I'm always fine, the crabby voice that was either his or hers said. Go!_

She obeyed, but mainly because she had to - her body had already made the decision for her, and she was plunging through the forest, headed back towards the ostensible shore. She had no idea where she was going, or what she was supposed to do when she got there, but Logan did; it was burned into his brain, a map in neon, and she had no choice but to follow.

The smell of burning wood, metal, and flesh was very nearly incapacitating, it felt like someone was stabbing her sinus cavities with knitting needles, but whatever she had pulled from Logan's mind was so insistent she couldn't stop. _It's just pain; master it or it masters you. _

That sounded like something from an old Kung Fu episode, but far be it from her to question him about it. He was the one who got vivisected, after all. Pain was his domain, and if he learned to live with it, so could she. Still, the sensory explosions from all avenues was always disorienting, and one of the most annoying things about absorbing Logan. It was his enhanced senses that made her realize that smell of onions could actually be a deadly weapon, that most people had honestly piss poor eyesight, the modern day was just too fucking loud, and sometimes you could taste certain ingredients in fast food - hell, in all kinds of food - that made the experience singularly unpleasant. The worst thing was, it made milk chocolate far too sweet to stand, although it seemed to improve the flavor of dark chocolate, even that mostly bitter kind. And she learned the feeling of the wind on your skin could be undeniably sensual, but she never brought that up, and wouldn't, but it could be kind of nice. One of the few benefits.

She broke through the trees and hit open rocky ground, the water of Alkali Lake a mirror reflecting the night sky, choppy only where the wake of the helicopter rotors disturbed it. She heard noise behind her, someone else coming through the underbrush, and she turned to see it was Brendan, who must have noticed she was gone and took off after her. He looked at her warily as he emerged from the forest, holding up his hands to show he wasn't armed, but she couldn't trust him. "Marie, we can't let you -" he began, but she just had no time for this.

"Kid, stow it, okay? I have to do this, I have to get this thing outta my head, or this won't work. So just stay back and give me a minute."

His head rocked back slightly, and he smirked in disbelief. "Kid? Why the hell are you …" He trailed off, and then confusion and understanding seemed to cross his face at the same time. "Logan?"

"No, Santa Claus." Convinced she could hear him before he could get close enough to do anything, she turned and ran off, towards the dark, faintly thrumming object just a few meters from the edge of the lake.

It looked ominous somehow, the base of the 2001 monolith, chopped down and rounded slightly ( … the 2001 what? She had just thought of a reference she didn't understand at all …), with its low electric hum that probably wasn't audible to the Human ear until they got very close. It was a generator of a sort, already powered up, and capable of giving off a lethal charge. She had never dealt with a generator before, and certainly not one like this, but Logan knew what to do, and his thoughts seemed to have already transferred completely to her muscle memory. She was reaching for right access cover before she knew it, and she still had no idea what she was going to do.

Then she knew, and she didn't like it. _It's the only way_, her inner voice insisted. _We have to make sure it can't come back. _

She still didn't get what "it" was, beyond a constant, growing ache in her head. But the cover was off, on the ground, revealing cables plugged into the bulk of the machine, and warning labels suggesting this was a dangerous as all hell, at least to stick figures. She couldn't help but wonder if this was going to hurt.

_Only when you regain consciousness. _

Somehow that was less than comforting. But it didn't stop her hands from reaching for the cables, and grabbing them with some unclear purpose. There was a sudden, hard pain, a donkey kick to the chest, and then everything jumped suddenly to black.

* * *

She was on the verge of semi-consciousness, not awake enough to qualify as even half conscious, but aware enough that she could feel the pain, the sensation like her skin was on fire from the inside, and she thought she could smell roasted flesh. Her own? That was so creepy on so many levels.

But in her own mind, a memory surfaced, slowly bobbing to the surface. A memory not her own.

Logan was staring into his bathroom, and talking to himself. Or, wait, no, only himself at the time. "Rogue, I'm sorry to do this to you, but it was the only way I could think to rescue you. I was at a loss as to how to rescue Saddiq, so I'm afraid I'm gonna have to dump that off on you. I have a half assed idea as to how to go about it, but there are some gaps in my tactical knowledge that you have the best shot at knowing, having been with the Organization this time and seeing how they plan to work this. I'm outta play for a while if this whole stupid scheme worked, so you've gotta cover for me, kid. I'm sorry to put it all on you, but I don't have much choice." He looked down at the sink, grimacing as if he had a bad taste in his mouth, and when he looked up again, he looked unusually contrite. "I'm really sorry I got you into this. I should have never let you come along with us. The Organization is a complete shower of bastards, and I should've known better than to expose you to them for even a second. But sometimes my own desire to hurt them blinds me to what I'm actually doing. I just want to destroy them and everything they stand for, but they keep coming back. The fuckers are like me. And maybe that bothers me more than anything else." Again he looked away, as if he couldn't stand to see himself in the mirror, and seemed to focus on a spot roundabout his reflection's right ear, jaw going tight in grim resolve. "Here's what you're gonna have to do, Rogue. Alter it as you see fit, but remember, we have to get Saddiq home, alive and preferably in one piece."

In a way, listening to him was good, because it distracted her from the pain.

* * *

Damn it, he knew it! Well, okay, no, he suspected it, and that was just as good.

He should have known Logan was preparing to do something suicidal and stupid. Did he not walk in on him having his last meal, for Christ's sake?

Brendan watched in horror as Rogue apparently electrocuted herself, and once her body was thrown clear he went to check on her, but she was incredibly still breathing; smoking a bit, but otherwise pretty good. Then again, she had Logan's healing factor, right? Which was why he had to be absorbed by her before this could work. But why electrocution? Did this mean he thought there was a physical implant or something?

Damn, he felt like an idiot. Why didn't Logan tell them what he intended to do? Because they would try and stop him, probably.

There were crashing noises in the brush, people emerging rather inelegantly from the forest, but it was just the rest of the crew, Bobby and Kitty, with Piotr taking up the rear, an unconscious and not quite dead (but almost) Logan slung over his shoulder like a knapsack. Bobby looked at the scene with incomprehension, then asked, "What the hell happened?"

"My best guess?" Brendan offered. "Logan told me we probably couldn't save both of them this time out, and I was so overwhelmed by the odds against us that I didn't see that he was laying the groundwork for what he did here." He considered using a Sophie's Choice reference, but didn't know if anyone would get what he meant, so he skipped it. "He chose the one to save: Rogue. He got himself absorbed by her, so she could electrocute herself on this doohickey."

"Electrocute herself?" Bobby looked horrified, and went over to Rogue's side, although warily, as if she might still be an org zombie or possibly still electrified.

"She has his healing factor. She'll be fine. That's why he gave it to her, so she could survive burning this stuff out."

It was Piotr's turn to look at him funny. "Burn what stuff out?"

He shrugged. "Hell if I know. I'm just assuming he thought Rogue was being controlled by something physical or mechanical, as opposed to purely telepathic."

"That makes sense," Piotr agreed. "If they were under psychic influence, the Professor would have been able to tell. Would electrocution kill Saddiq?"

They all shared confused glances, no one really sure, until a groggy, raspy voice said, "Yeah, it will, it'll cook his organs from the inside out. Only his skin is impervious to harm." It was Rogue who said it, but the information was Logan's; he knew these Eden kids better than anyone else. He brought them in, didn't he?

She rolled over onto her back, but didn't even try and get up. "We gotta make it look like you captured me, like someone really put the hurt on me even as I took Logan out. We don't want them to know I'm back to normal - in a manner of speaking - just yet."

Bobby looked down at her like he wasn't sure who he was talking to, which was fair enough. "Why?"

''Cause, I gotta plan. But they hafta remain in the dark about it, don't they?" Her tone of voice was so brusque it almost altered pitch, almost sounded like Logan. It was really weird. There was just no getting used to that. "I'll play dead. One of you'll hafta carry me out."

"What about getting their equipment..?" Kitty wondered.

"Bullshit. Sorry, but I had to - I mean he had to lie to you, distract you, so you wouldn't figure out what he was trying to do. He didn't think you'd approve."

That was true enough. Brendan walked over and said, "I'll carry you. Piotr's hands are full."

She nodded, looking up at him, and he noticed her eyes were now hazel-green, Logan's eye color. If she started growing sideburns, he didn't know who would be more horrified. "What about that … thing?" He gestured at the generator, which squatted on the shore like an overgrown toad, strangely menacing for all its utilitarianism.

"The chopper 'll come back for it," she replied confidently. "I - he just borrowed it."

"Who are these guys anyways?" He asked, hoping she'd give him an answer where Logan wouldn't.

No dice; she was still as much Logan as she was herself. She even quirked her eyebrow up like he did, eyes stony with knowledge. There were no longer any signs she had been electrocuted surely fatally a couple of minutes ago. "Nice try, Bren."

Oh, if only he didn't find stubborn assholes so damn attractive.

He had to be very careful picking Rogue up, as she could still absorb him if he touched any exposed flesh, but luckily she didn't have much, and by hefting her up in a fireman's carry, he saved himself from any potential contact. And really, it was time for a retreat; the fire was getting closer to them now, the heat making him sweat, even though when the wind blew off the lake he shivered. Would anyone else survive this? (Well, Saddiq, sure - his skin couldn't burn, right? But what about everyone else?)

Bobby's ice bridge was melting rapidly from the heat, but he firmed it up as they crossed back over, only realizing how bad the air was over on the forested side when they were over the lake, and the air came in pure and cold. Some of them coughed just from the general shock of no longer breathing in wood smoke.

He could see the strong woman Bobby froze still floating on the lake, although she looked almost thawed by now. Would she ever realize she was lucky to have been frozen? She could be in the woods instead, getting roasted like a marshmallow on a camping trip. Which made him wonder again how the fire had spread so fast. Did these guys - whoever they were - also use incendiary devices? Was one of them packing a flamethrower? They were like vampires or ninjas or something like that; you knew they were there in the shadows, but you could never quite spot them. You could hear the gunshots, maybe a scream or two, some rustling, but nothing else. They were more than just mercenaries, they were like a professional death squad, and it made him wonder how on earth Logan knew them. He wasn't joking about that whole "subpoena" thing, was he?

No one followed them across the path, and they seemed to be all alone , the lone survivors as the land across the lake seemed to be almost totally consumed by flames now, a beacon of light in the darkness. Was there even anyone left to observe the fact that they had "captured" Rogue?

Well, this was the Organization they were dealing with. Better safe than sorry.


	8. Part 8

10

She let Piotr and Brendan - acting as nervous co-pilot - take the jet home, as she broke down what little plan Logan had for getting Saddiq back. Bobby sat across from her, giving her the wary look he always gave a fuming Logan, like she was a bomb about to go off. She supposed she could understand it, but it still pissed her off.

Once she briefed everyone, Piotr exclaimed, "No way. We're not losing another person. The Professor and Logan's already too much."

"And Scott," Brendan added.

"There's not gonna be any losin', not if we do this right," she insisted, watching Piotr's jaw clench. Piotr may have been the artist of the school, but he was so straight laced sometimes it was hilarious. He wasn't as repressed as Scott, but he could be so stiffly formal. Since he'd never been on a date, or expressed any known interest in females, it was a generally quiet but accepted theory that he was gay, but in the closet. It was certainly more probable than him taking a silent vow of celibacy, or restricting his social life to internet porn, but he kept to himself so much it was really impossible to say for sure.

Then again, thanks to Logan, she knew that for a long time, Russian culture frowned on such a thing, and it was quite possible, since he did spend most of his formative years there, that he learned to repress it to conform. Logan knew a lot about Russian culture, more than she would have ever expected. He read Russian poetry? Weirdness.

"And how do we do this right?" Kitty asked. She was actually sitting right next to her, not freaked out by her "maybe Logan/possibly not" status. Then again, Kitty had a weird fascination with Logan. It wasn't a crush, but it was hard to say what it was. Rogue just knew that Kitty was afraid a lot that she couldn't "pull her weight", whatever that exactly meant, and she saw Logan as the epitome of the guy who could do major things for the team ... when he bothered to show up. And Logan never seemed to dismiss her as a lightweight, which she felt almost everyone else did. For her part, Rogue wasn't sure that was true, but Logan was never around the school long enough to give her that impression.

"Leave that to me."

"Rogue, the Professor would never approve of you going on a mission alone," Piotr pointed out, like she expected him to do. If Scott wasn't here, he could do a damn good impression of him.

"I won't be alone. And he'd approve of Logan going alone, wouldn't he?"

"No, he wouldn't." But he shifted in his seat as he added, almost under his breath, "But he'd go anyways."

"Exactly. Let me work out a few details, and then we can get started."

"You're not Logan," Piotr countered. "You just think you are."

"And we don't have any real plan as to how to rehabilitate Saddiq," Brendan interjected, possibly trying to forestall an argument. "I mean, keeping him on ice until Bob shows up smacks of desperation."

"You bet yer ass it does," she agreed. "But else can we do? Wait for Logan to come to so he can use his claws to carve Saddiq's skull open so we can remove the nano-chip or whatever the hell it is? Nobody's qualified to do brain surgery here."

"What about one of the telekinetics?" Piotr asked. "We have some at the school."

"Ones who can do chip destruction totally blind?"

That shut him up. It would have been a tall order, even for Jean, who was the strongest TK they had. (Boy, thinking of Jean brought up some weird memories in Logan's mind ... )

"Look, if we have a better plan for getting that chip outta Saddiq once we get him, I'll be all for it. But right now, let's worry about getting him back. Then we'll worry about the rest."

_Maybe we should ask Magneto if he'd be so kind as to do it, Logan commented sarcastically. If it was Logan; no idea. But the thought made her smirk. Yeah, they could send Magneto a postcard, light up the helmet signal, see if he responded. Then, afterwards, maybe they could get a shot at killing the old bastard this time._

(Ooh, Rogue really liked that idea ...)

Piotr turned in the pilot seat to face her, his expression earnest enough that it would have earned a swell of orchestral music in a t.v. movie. "I don't want to send you in alone. Anything could happen. What if they don't believe you? They have telepaths, right?"

"Right - and I have Logan. The deeper they probe, the more shit Logan can throw at them. He learned how to frustrate and scare telepaths, if not exactly ward them off. He can usually make 'em leave pretty fast." She didn't think she got any of the Bob energy he still had in him, but that was okay - Logan had some mental warfare tools at his disposal. The only problem was, she'd be subjected to those memories at the same time. Still, she'd probably already seen most of them in her nightmares.

Piotr shook his head the whole time she talked. "He's been taken by telepaths before. You're basing this all on supposition."

"If you gotta better plan, let's hear it."

He paused, and she was sure she'd shut him up, but after thinking about for a few seconds, he said, "Not a better plan, but maybe a revision."

She listened, and as much as she hated to admit it, he had some good ideas, especially for a guy with little field experience. But she still felt compelled to inform him, "The more people involved in this, the more things can get fucked up."

"Things are already f … screwed up," he replied, slightly exasperated. "They can't get much worse than you walking into that lion's den alone, and taking them all on."

"Why don't we just wait until the Professor's awake?" Bobby said, finally contributing something to the conversation.

"Because that will take too long," she pointed out. "He'll be out for days. The plan was to disable him for a while, and believe me, I did. Now that their plan has fucked up, they'll probably try and move Saddiq out of the country ASAP. We need to get him now, or we'll never get 'im again. Not until he attacks."

Kitty sighed heavily, leaning her elbows on her knees and staring down at the deck. "This really sucks."

She didn't even know the half of it.

* * *

That was the best laugh he'd had in a long time.

When he was through, he wiped the tears away from his eyes with the back of his hand, only to find Jean staring at him, her hips locked, arms crossed over her chest. She had a small, smug smile on her face. "Are you done?"

He had to hand it to her; she was cool in her delusions. "Probably not. What the hell are you on to think I would ever help you reacquire something you never should have had in the first place?"

The smug look just grew. "Because I'm all you've got. The only other option is to let Xiuh keep the power. And you know what he's going to do with it, don't you?"

Bob opened his mouth to say something, then stopped. Oh no. She couldn't actually be _right_, could she? "No, no," he finally said, shaking his head. "There's gotta be another way -"

"In what universe? He's an old god, yes? A crazy, angry old god who thinks people are to blame for not worshipping them any more, right? When he gets bored with looking for us, he'll send his lackeys to do it, and start killing. How will he do it? You said he was a fire god. So can I assume he'll burn everything up? Maybe that's too pedestrian …"

"This can't be it. The choice can't be simply you or him." But even as he said it, he feared she was right, at least for the moment. Xiuh probably couldn't be contained, and is he was destroyed, the power would revert back to Jean. The only way it wouldn't was if Jean died first, and then Xiuh was destroyed; the energy, without an avatar, would disperse.

And Jean must have known that. Her smile had turned evil, as sharp as a razor blade. "Are you going to kill me in cold blood, Bob? Does it mean that much to you?"

Man, what a savage bitch. He had no idea her dark side was quite this bad, but perhaps that's why she repressed it so intensely. "I'm glad you're enjoying this. Do you really think you have a hope in hell of carrying this off?"

"The devil you know is better than the devil you know even better, in my estimation. And I know for a fact that there are people on Earth who need you right now. Angel, for example; someone figured out he wasn't supposed to be there, someone who may have enough power to do something about it. And of course there's Scott -"

"Do you have any humanity left at _all_?" He really wanted to shake her until her brains rattled around her head like buckshot in a cake pan, but he knew it would do no good at all. She was just like them; Cammy had sunk his claws in so deep that calling her Jean was probably a misnomer.

Her expression was all wrong, gloating and hard, a mask carved from stone. "I can't, remember?"

Oh yes, she was enjoying this.

"Well, I _can't_ help you. Don't know if you noticed, but he's a hell of a lot stronger than I am. I can't fight him and win."

"Of course not. But you know gods who can. Tick tock, Bob. The clock is running."

He glared at her, aware it was doing nothing but making her gloat all that much more. "You will pay for this."

Her smile remained a cruel and bright thing, something barely concealing a laugh. "Perhaps. But not today. Now, shall we?"

Did she think it was going to be quite that easy? He took a moment to think of the god most likely to screw them over in a way that wouldn't equal the apocalypse, and opened a portal.

11

Rags was waiting for them at the mansion when they returned, pissed off about … something (when he was angry, his Cockney really came out, and it was impossible to understand him). It occurred to her he might have the right connections to get them some non-traditional help. He was in no mood to help at first, and seemed really confused by the whole 'I'm not Logan, but I did absorb him' thing.

The Professor was no closer to consciousness than he had been when she left him on the catwalk. Logan was just bad; she'd absorbed him too long, and he barely had a readable blood pressure or a heartbeat. It was there, but clearly his healing factor hadn't recovered yet. She felt bad about it all, but the little voice in her head that could have been Logan or her told her, _Don't worry about it. You didn't do that to Xavier voluntarily, and I planned to let you drain me dry, to overwhelm the whatever-the-fuck in your brain. I figured it couldn't adapt as readily to your powers, that that was a complexity that the Organization couldn't handle. I guess I was right._

She wanted to feel some guilt, but the Logan part wasn't letting her. It wanted her to focus on getting Saddiq back first; emotions were a luxury an agent couldn't afford before a mission.

(Agent! Mission? What the fuck was that?)

As it turned out, once they calmed him down, Rags had a new spell that he was dying to try out, that could help them immensely. Piotr questioned the actual value of it, but it made Rogue laugh, not only because it was perfect, but because it was perfect irony. Why would he _ever_ need to know that anyways? In the circles Rags traveled in, it would be as good as spitting in the ocean. But, if it did work, it would make the whole plan much easier.

Everyone was surprised when she told them where the temporary base of operation was. They apparently thought it was up in Canada, but that was the main reason they wanted the meeting up at Alkali Lake, to further that impression. (Logan was right, though; the minor reason was to send a big "fuck you" to him.) But if you thought about it, it made perfect sense. Did she and Saddiq hitch a ride to evil person central? Did they stop at the border and have to answer the "Do you have any fruit to declare?" question? No, of course not.

The temporary B.O.O. was in an abandoned power station about thirty miles from the mansion, long redesigned as an emergency station. Because of that, it didn't have as much security as a long term base, which again served their plan. But time worked against them, as the survivors would be choppered back, but only if the field leader had been killed. Logan thought it was a good bet that almost no normal human could have survived that conflagration, because clearly a Triad hit squad had answered Wing's call and had orders to scorch the fucking earth. But she didn't share that little tidbit with the rest of them, who had stopped asking who Logan's "friends" were, because after having seen the flaming pyre the "island" had become once they lifted off, no one wanted to know anymore. No, they didn't like it, and Xavier wouldn't like it either, but those callous killers had probably saved all their lives. She knew what the Organization had planned for them. If the Triad hadn't shown up prepared for war, the Organization would have captured or killed them all. She had little doubt of this. Those were their orders, after all.

So they worked out the final details of the plan, timing being crucial, and brought Rags in on it. He'd never be in any danger - god no! He was too sober to agree to that - but he would need to get close briefly to cast the spell. He was so nervous about that, he seemed to sober up that much more. Also, to keep anyone who was going unaffected by the spell, he had to draw things on them. Rogue didn't get how a couple of marks on 'em would spare them, but Logan encouraged her not to question it. No, it made no sense, but a lot of this magic related shit made no sense at all, and yet it still seemed to generally work.

He had to be very careful with her, touching her with no more than a pen (one of the fine tipped markers Piotr seemed to have by the metric ton. At least he picked a really nice blue), and she bared her upper arm for him to scribble on. He was so nervous he sweated on her, but he didn't touch her bare skin with his skin. (And she never realized how much he smelled like celery until now.) What he drew looked like a snake crossed with something like ivy, a snake with something like leaves springing from its body, and it was not too dissimilar from the tattoos that sleeved both his arms and the back of his hands; those strange black vines that probably had some religious significance to a High Priest of the Stone Temple.

As soon as that was out of the way, they checked the time; Rogue did the math in her head and yet still ended up making a guess (but an educated one, at least). Then she headed down to the garage, and couldn't help but break into a run, excited beyond the telling of it.

She got to drive the motorcycle!

Okay, technically she could have taken one of the cars, but she didn't want to. She _never_ got to drive a motorcycle, supposedly because she didn't know how (Scott somehow managed to always put off teaching her how to as well), but thanks to Logan, she knew how to now.

As she straddled the bike and kicked up the kickstand (wow, it was heavier than she thought), that voice in her head said, _You could put on a helmet._

"I have your healing factor!" She exclaimed, turning the key. "Fuck the helmet."

She revved it a bit, just enjoying the loud growl of the engine, then shot out of the garage like a bat out of hell, finally understanding what that phrase meant.

Damn it was fun. Oh, it was a little scary at first, the bike was much heavier than she expected and responded to gravity and inertia a lot differently than a car, but she let Logan's instincts take over, and it was as easy as hell. Logan had been driving motorcycles since … well, a long time. There was a freedom to them, an intimate feeling of speed that you just didn't get with a car. In a way, it was like flying. And she got to see the sky light up with the sherbet colors of dawn, soft pinks and oranges, lilac shades giving way to pale blues.

It also had drawbacks she hadn't considered. Windburn, for one (not a Logan affliction, of course), and bugs smacking you in the face instead of a windshield. The bugs were the grossest part, although she only really encountered one and a half. And, oh man, her hair. What was her hair going to look like after this? Was that what happened to Logan's hair?

Just to add to the fun, it started to sprinkle as she came within view of the power station in question, a dreary pillbox of a place in a weedy field just south of a still functioning gravel pit, where heavy machinery tore big chunks out of the earth, and the wind blew a gray layer of dirt over everything in the vicinity. It made it look like there had been a recent volcanic eruption, the ash still silting to the ground.

Was the timing right? She honestly wasn't sure; she was just having too much fun sailing down the road way too fast and way too exposed to keep track of time. (And the bug collision also threw her off a bit.) She let the bike idle a moment before heading up the road leading to the front of the abandoned power station, which still had a seven foot high concrete wall topped with three separate strands of razor wire, all of which looked strangely new in comparison with the rest of the site.

She drove slowly, and wasn't surprised when a spotlight stabbed down from one of the high posts near the locked gate, and a voice barked, "Identify yourself."

She stopped the bike, killed the engine, and put down the kickstand, if only to spare it from coming inside. "Duh, it's me, Rogue. I'm back. Do you actually think they could hold me hostage for a single second?"

She knew it would take a second for the information to filter inside through the system. They were probably scanning the area now, checking all the passive cameras and sensors hidden in the field, checking for her back up. Of course they'd find none. They'd have the tech ops on high alert for at least an hour now, not trusting that this wasn't a trap, but they had no cameras trained on their own roof.

She walked up to the gate, hands held up to show she had no weapons - and she had her gloves on, further proof of no ill intent. After half a minute elapsed, she started to get really impatient. There was no way it should have taken them this long to vet her.

_They're seeing how you react, that voice said, with great certainty. Just act bored._

Done and done. Oh, inside she was just dying from the anxiety, from the fear things could go horribly wrong in a billion ways (maybe First wasn't killed), but Logan had an instinctual default that she borrowed to get through this. It wasn't so much a personality as the lack of one, a refusal to let any emotions surface, a way to deny them the merest clues to what they sought. She knew, only as a grim afterthought, this was how he survived torture; give them nothing on the outside, study and wait, no matter how excruciating it was. There would come a time when there would be an opening, a chance … and then they would all pay. It was a deadly mindset, and she was startled at what a dark and ugly mental vein she had tapped into here. But she might need it; she couldn't deny this base survival instinct - or whatever it was - was something that just might give her the edge if it all went tits up.

(What the hell kind of expression was that!)

Finally, a voice barked, "Don't move until we tell you to move." The gate unlocked with a "clank", and as it was pulled aside, several armed soldiers in the best body armor money could buy (that didn't give you adamantium poisoning) aimed nasty looking automatic rifles at her - Logan's mind informed her they were actually AS50 semi-automatics, whatever those were (modified so their base tripods were gone; it was also possible they were upgrade to full auto; rather heavy to lug around, but known for their ability to take a lot of damage and still work, as well as have sniper rifle levels of accuracy … how the fuck did he know all this!) - and suddenly Titan was there, a large white bandage on her right cheek, almost covering the scowl on her face as she brought out a pair of metal restraints, and snapped, "Turn around and put your hands behind your back, or I'll bash your fucking skull in."

"Yer gonna cuff me? Jeeze, this is the fucking thanks I get for taking those idiots out?" She obeyed, though. Part of her wanted to - she _really _didn't want to have to go in there handcuffed - but that survival instinct made her, Logan looking out for her even though he wasn't here. "So what happened to your face? Freezer burn?"

"Shut the fuck up," Titan snarled, slapping the cuffs on a lot more roughly than she needed to, but Rogue was unable to suppress a snicker. Yeah, it was probably something like that. Strength didn't help her much then, did it?

Still, as cool as she was keeping things on the outside, her stomach was burning, starting to tie itself in knots as she felt the cold steel even through the base of her gloves, heard the metallic click of the cuffs being locked and tightened. Oh, this was so bad.

No, she couldn't think like that. She would prove she wasn't bait, and they would let her go, simple as that. (What if it wasn't, though? What if they didn't buy it, what if her timing was way off, what if she trapped here for an hour waiting for Rags to show up and do his thing?)

_Nothing is gonna happen to you, the voice reassured her. I won't let it._

She wasn't sure if that was comforting or frightening. And since he was her - or she was him; however it worked - what could he possibly do?

Then she remembered the gaping chasm of the deadly space inside his mind, and realized she didn't want to know.


	9. Part 9

Once she was cuffed, Titan took her by her (covered) arm and pulled her roughly inside the gate, with half of the men with big ass guns following. The other half stood and looked out at the field as they closed the gate, as if expecting an attack. They probably were; she had no idea what it would take to win a modicum of their trust.

_Don't try, the voice instructed. Not obviously. Remain nonchalant, like they're the assholes._

That last part was easy; the nonchalant part? She wasn't even sure she could spell it. But she had enough Logan in her that she didn't have to worry about it. She could feel his personality slipping over hers like a glove, but it was an unsettling side, one she wasn't sure she had seen before: the glib liar.

"Why all the paranoia, guys? Think I'm hittin' for the other team now?"

Titan gave her a sidelong look that was scorching. There was something continually pitiless about her eyes, something hard and flat, like she could kill you or kiss you and it wouldn't make any fundamental difference which she chose. _Psychopath, _the voice told her, with great authority. _They all have the same thousand yard stare. That's what makes her dangerous. Not her strength; the fact that she's an amoral fuck who probably can only get her jollies pounding people into pulp. _

That was comforting.

"How did you get away from them?" Her voice was rich with accusation.

"Are you kiddin' me? They thought it was just a matter of "deprogramming" me or some such shit. They shackled me and tried a little telepathic persuasion. Didn't work, but I did my best to make 'em believe it did. Then, my poor wittle boyfriend felt sorry for me." She cackled dryly, surprised at how natural it felt. "I got him to get close enough to take his power. Those assholes should be defrosted by tomorrow, if you wanna hit the mansion now. It's an easy target."

If she was convinced, it didn't show. The inside of the abandoned power station was remarkably cold, but cement walls - the entire building, save for the outside, seemed to be made of cement - weren't known for their heat retaining properties.

"You sound different."

"Too much Wolverine. I'm absorbed him before, y'know, and the more I absorb someone, the easier it is for me to imprint their personality."

This earned her a more direct glance. "So the old man is down?"

"Down 'n out. I got him at Alkali Lake, it's just while I was draining him, Brendan, that stupid fucker, got me in the back of the neck with a hypo."

"A hypo of what?"

"Some kinda fuckin' horse tranquilizers. Can you believe it? It was supposed to keep me and Saddiq down for hours, until Xavier could come around to deprogram us."

"You look sober to me."

"Duh. I just said I absorbed Wolverine, remember?"

She nodded faintly, not ready to concede her an entire point. "His healing factor compensated."

"Eventually, yeah. Took a while. Guess you guys never gave him that kind of horse pill, huh?"

She shrugged, not really concerned. "They dosed him with a lot of shit, but medicine advances at a rapid clip. So what do you know about his time with us?"

It was her turn to shrug. "Not a lot. His memories are, like, this fucked up mess. It's like a badly edited Ed Wood movie or somethin' - nothin' makes a whole lotta sense."

(Ed Wood? That guy in the Johnny Depp film who wore women's clothes?)

That got a smirk from Titan, but it didn't look very friendly. "Yeah, I bet. See, the problem with the old man was he was a complete nutbag. He kept having nervous breakdowns, y'know, psychotic breaks. There are rumors that Stryker and this guy named Shrike had it in for him, that they loved to fuck with his mind and see how often they could break him, but frankly, he was just weak. A weak little motherfucker who thinks he's hot shit just 'cause he can't remember the last time he went nuts. I always wondered what Xavier was gonna do when the old man blew his next gasket. He will, y'know. He's a total fuckin' basket case."

Rogue was so mad she could hear the blood roaring in her ears. The fucking bitch! How dare she -

_Let it go. Don't take the bait._

She didn't want to, but her anger seemed to be subsiding against her will. _A time will come when you can use your anger; right now, it's wasted. Save it._

She kept her eyes on the plain gray walls, so Titan couldn't see the play of anger in her eyes before it was tamped down. "So why did they want him back so bad if he's such a loony toon?" Her voice was level, almost casual, and she didn't know if she asked, or her vestigial Logan personality had asked. Did it matter?

Titan's shrug was just a roll of her shoulders, which seemed far more massive and muscular when they moved. "They say he's a born killer, a rare find, and too expensive an investment to waste. But they're all fucked, the higher ups. Wolverine's a dodo, a lower end model who's extinct and not worth a fifth of the adamantium in him. They should just let him go and pulp him before he goes all loco on them again."

First opportunity, she was going to absorb the living hell out of Titan. She half expected the little voice to speak up and tell her she shouldn't, but it didn't. She took that as general approval.

Titan started to steer her towards a metal door painted an alarmingly dull shade of dark blue pitted with rust spots, and she could smell other people beyond the door, a miasma of conditioner and deodorant, aftershave and hair gel, sweat and cigarette smoke, and a background odor of ozone fried dust. It wasn't pleasant, and she did her best not to sneeze or cringe, but something in Logan's scent memory recognized one of these trails of smells: Saddiq. He was here, and behind that door.

She could hear the rumble of male voices behind it as well, but before she could focus on it, make out their words, Titan asked, "So who were those idiots at Alkali Lake?"

_Be honest. _

Sure, why not? "The Triad. One of their bosses owed Logan a favor."

Titan actually stopped, and an emotion almost showed on her face. That must have meant she was shocked. "The Triad? You mean those Chinese mobster guys?"

"The one and only."

"What the hell kinda favor could Wolverine've done for them?"

She didn't know how to proceed, and the voice didn't speak up, so she just decided the honesty rule was still in effect. She only wished she fully understood the fragmented memory that drifted up from Logan's already splintered memories. "He helped them reclaim some lost territory from the Yakuza." Or did he just help kill a guy? It really wasn't clear at all. Wasn't that weird? There was no way Logan could fight her in her own mind; he wasn't an individual anymore, just a segment of her collective conscious.

And there was the problem. Maybe she was fighting herself over his memories, because he probably would, and she'd been him enough to model his personality and will dead on. She _really _didn't want this power. Couldn't she just be super-strong or be able to fly or bend spoons from a distance or something? Being more than one person at a time sucked.

Titan was glaring at her, like she was making this up. But she knew she wasn't. "Why the fuck would Wolverine work for the Triad? He that desperate for cash?"

"They were the lesser of two evils. No, strike that, three evils."

"How could they ever be the lesser evil of anything? Was Hitler the other choice?"

She probably couldn't say demons, or that the Yakuza had killed his wife, so …

Wait a fucking second! Wife? He had a _wife_? Since when did Logan have a wife? The news was not only stunning and fairly unbelievable - didn't he pretty much just shack up with random women? - the wave of turbulent emotions that came with it was a little disorienting. It hurt to even try and think about her; it actually physically hurt. It was like a muscle in the middle of her stomach was clenching hard, too hard, and made it a little difficult to breathe. She knew if she pursued the thought pattern she could discover a name for this woman, but it hurt so much she didn't want to. Was that her Logan side putting up the biggest fight of its life, or is that what happened to him when he thought about her?

As it was, she didn't have to worry about Titan seeing her momentary discombobulation or the fact that she hadn't given her an answer yet, as the door slid open, revealing a small, windowless room, with only a metal desk and a bare light bulb dangling from a socket as decoration. Two men were inside the room: Saddiq standing in front of the desk, posture ramrod straight and his arms clasped behind his back in an almost military posture, and sitting behind the desk was a moon faced middle aged man with thinning black hair and the air of a harassed middle manager, suggesting he was the hastily promoted new First, as the old one was dead. Perfect.

"So, is this a trap or not?" The new First asked Titan.

As always, the woman shrugged. "Nothing's goin' on yet. I haven't gotten any reports of movement on the perimeter." She tapped the earpiece inside her right ear. "But who knows what their plan is. What is their plan?"

Rogue didn't so much shrug as dip her head towards her shoulder. "Fuck if I know. Probably defrost."

Saddiq was giving her a hard, scrutinizing glance, but she paid no attention. He was still in their grasp, so she expected him to be paranoid.

Where was everyone? She hoped they'd get here soon, because these cuffs were starting to cut off her blood circulation.

12

Rags' teleportation spell always left your stomach feeling like it had been kicked by a rugby player wearing cleats. Feeling mildly queasy was really the best possible outcome.

Still, Brendan was proud of the fact that he had no overwhelming nausea to fight back, just a vague feeling of queasiness. Sadly that was not the case for Piotr or Kitty, who instantly doubled over, grabbing their stomachs and coughing up a little bit of whatever they had for breakfast. Rags was too used to it to let his passenger's cookie tossing bother him.

They'd ended up square on top of the power station's flat roof, and while it was instinctive to duck, there were no sensors up here, no guards, and it was unlikely they could even look up and see them unless they were far away from the building. They were patrolling the grounds, but not far out enough to see them, not unless they already knew what they were looking for.

Rags started the spell, talking quietly under his breath, and sprinkling something that Brendan would have sworn was just Mrs. Dash mixed with green glitter. He could have been speaking Latin, or demon, or just saying _"Hey Bay-bee" _over and over again - with his accent, it was sometimes hard to tell.

Nothing happened, and they all waited for something to happen, but it never did. The glitter and herbs just blew around the roof for a bit, and Rags declared, "It's done. So you can go do … whatever it is yer doin' exactly."

The three of them exchanged doubtful looks, and then they glanced off at the guard patrols on the perimeter. Some had passed out, others were laughing at nothing and staggering, two were suddenly in an incoherent shouting match with each other, someone was singing tunelessly (Tom Jones songs? Seriously?), and another just sat down where he was and burst into huge, wracking sobs.

Well, it was a "drunk" spell. Not every person reacted to drunkenness in exactly the same way. But Rogue/Logan was right - there was no doubt that it was extremely debilitating, especially when you weren't expecting it, and everybody got drunk at once.

"This is so weird," Kitty said, as they watched the two arguing guards start to get in a violent shoving match. It sounded like they were fighting over which of them was the bigger asshole. Brendan figured the guy who threw the first punch would be the automatic winner of that title.

"No kidding," Piotr agreed. He then metaled up, and just to fit in, Brendan went demon and spiky. The three of them retreated back to the middle of the roof, leaving Rags near the edge to watch the show, and Kitty grabbed his hand and Piotr's hand. "Take a deep breath," she said. "And don't let go."

They nodded, and then they must have phased, because then they were falling through the roof.

It was really weird, and he supposed he understood why she told them not to let go, as there was a moment of panic, your mind insisting that this wasn't right and certainly couldn't - or shouldn't - be happening. He felt weightless, but still there was a sensation of falling (how?), and there was some kind of feeling when they fell through the roof layers and came out into an interior hallway, but Brendan couldn't say what the feeling was exactly, as it was foreign to anything he had ever experienced before.

Kitty rendered them all solid again and they hit the floor, and alarms started instantly screaming through the building, making him wince. "They got them some great sensors, huh?"

A soldier in body armor and toting a big ass rifle suddenly appeared out of nowhere, tried to hold his gun on them, and kind of failed. He had to settle with aiming roughly in their direction before slurring, "Identify your fucking selves."

Did sloppy drunk quite cover it? His face was flushed, and it looked like he was a second or two away from drooling. His eyes didn't want to focus, or at least not for long. "We're the cleaning crew," Brendan offered, looking as innocent as he could possibly muster with what he knew was his hideous demon face. "We're new."

He squinted at them, stumbled slightly even though he was standing still, and finally slurred, "Prove it."

Deeper inside the building, he heard a male voice roar, "Shut that fucking thing off!"

Prove it? How drunk did you have to be to recognize steel guy, intangible chick, and hedgehog faced demon boy weren't the custodial staff? Could none of these guys hold their alcohol?

Brendan approached him slowly, pretending to reach slowly into his pocket. "I'll show you my i.d. card, okay? Don't shoot."

"'Sposda wear 'em around your neck," Drunk soldier said helpfully. He actually tucked his rifle under his arm and waited to see it. "Fuckin' newbies."

Brendan let the guy watch his left hand, and then pulled back his right and hit him square in the face. He didn't so much fall to the floor as collapse in a messy heap, like … well, like Rags after happy hour on a Friday night. The alarm shut off almost at the same instant, as if on cue.

He took the rifle off the guy, which was difficult because the guy's arm got tangled in the strap, and Piotr asked, "Why are you taking that? Can you even shoot it?"

"Probably not, but it makes me feel better."

The three of them stuck together, because separating in a strange place this small was nuts, and as it turned out, they scared a couple of drunk guys off just by the fact that they were traveling in a pack. Also, Brendan had learned to point the heavy gun with some authority, but he wasn't even sure the safety was off.

He felt slightly useless, as he was just lookout as Piotr smashed down locked doors and Kitty just poked her heads through other ones. As it turned out, it became a moot point, as someone came smashing through the wall down the hall from them, making Kitty yelp in shock. It was Saddiq, flying out in a cloud of concrete dust, and he slammed against the far wall in an almost horizontal position, with a force that should have

shattered every bone in his body. But he was coughing when he hit the ground, and seemed to be moving as that muscle woman, Titan, appeared coming through the new Saddiq sized hole in the wall. "Think you're gonna replace me, you motherfucking towelhead!" She roared, and went to kick him.

Saddiq saw it coming and caught her leg, then, still sitting on the floor, used a leg sweep to take her remaining leg out from under her, sending her crashing down to the floor on her ass. Saddiq then pounced, throwing a nasty shot that caught her flush in the throat. Using her superior strength, she launched him farther down the hall, but then she rolled over on her side and started choking, desperately trying to catch a breath. Yeah, Saddiq was overpowered, but he was trying to even the odds - and damn if he wasn't doing a good job. Brendan figured if he was beaten so badly, his brains would be too rattled to think that clearly.

Rogue appeared, stepping out of the hole. "Finally. Somebody get these damn cuffs offa me." She had blood on her face, and some had dribbled down onto her dark green t-shirt, leaving a black trail. Her lower lip was split, but as they watched it was healing itself up, pasting itself back together, just like it did when Logan was hurt. He expected to see that, but it was still startling to see on her.

Kitty stepped forward, and grabbed her friend's cuffed hands. In the blink of an eye, Kitty removed the cuffs through Rogue's wrist, then dropped them, solid now but still locked together and useless. "Thanks darlin'," Rogue replied, rubbing her wrists. Kitty did a slight double take at Rogue calling her "darlin".

"What the hell happened?" Piotr asked, gesturing at the continued extremely violent - and building destroying - fight between Saddiq and Titan.

"Titan's a mean drunk. As soon as the spell hit, she punched me, hard enough that I left a dent in the wall. I'm pretty sure a few things in me got broken; damn, I forgot how weird rapid healing feels. Anyways, after she did that, Saddiq told her to leave me alone, and when she ignored him, he gave her a savage punch in the kidneys and rammed her head down into First's desk. She then threw him through the wall. I guess that's where you guys came in."

"Saddiq told her to leave you alone?" Piotr repeated, clearly confused. "Why did he do that?"

Rogue just shrugged, wiping some of the blood off her face. The fight was continuing, and Saddiq was getting some good licks in, but he was doomed. Titan wasn't hurting the outside, but the inside of him had to be taking some damage.

"Could the spell have negated the hold of the chip or whatever?" Brendan asked. He looked around for some theories, but everybody just looked back at him, puzzled, and he got a couple of shrugs.

Finally, Rogue grunted, sounding more like Logan, and offered, "Maybe, or he had a chivalrous side that mixed with his own belligerent one. Anything's possible. Science and magic don't always mix well."

"We have to help him," Piotr said, but was already on his way down the hall.

"Piotr, she can kick yer ass too!" Rogue snapped, and went after him, but Piotr had broken into a run, and smashed into Titan in a full body tackle as she started to crush Saddiq's throat. Saddiq went flying, and Piotr and Titan hit the floor so hard it actually made the building shake.

By all rights, Titan should have been crushed under Piotr's metal bulk, but maybe there was something in her strength power that kept that from happening, or maybe it was just the protection of an extreme alcoholic haze, but she punched Piotr in the face so hard he went flying off her and hit the wall. He broke some of it, made part of the wall crumble down, and seemed a little dazed. He probably hadn't expected it any more than they had.

"So you want some?" Titan growled, hopping to her feet, her hands curled into fists at her side. "Fine, metal boy. Let's see if you bleed mercury."

Rogue ripped off a glove with her teeth, and muttered, "You're mine, bitch." Titan almost turned, but never got the chance, as Rogue had already grabbed her by her bare throat. Titan froze, as if she was being jolted with a few thousand volts, and when Rogue let her go, she just flopped to the floor, as good as dead (but not quite).

Rogue was breathing hard, huffing breaths through her nose like an angry bull, and when she noticed everyone looking at her, she said, "I want to hurt something."

Brendan just pointed at the wall and backed up a step, hoping she'd pick the inanimate object. She did; she went over and started to punch and kick the concrete wall, sending chunks of it flying, pulverizing bits of it into dust.

Piotr sat up, rubbing his jaw. "I swear she left a dent." If he could make a joke, he was okay. (Was he making a joke?)

Kitty had gone to Saddiq, but kept her distance, as she wasn't sure if he was a good guy or a bad guy. Somehow he was conscious, even though his black hair was now gray with concrete dust, and while he managed to push himself up to his knees, he paused to cough up a serious amount of blood. Oh shit, had they ever figured out a way to help Saddiq if they couldn't cut through his skin?

Rogue was done doing structural damage, and seemed to have gotten control of herself, no matter how tenuous. "Saddiq, you back? Kid? You know where you are?"

He sat back against the wall with a tired sigh, blood running down his chin, and looked at them all with eyes dark and hard to read. "No, I don't know where I am. Something's telling me I should kill all of you, but I think I'm going to lay down for a minute first, okay?"

Rogue went and retrieved her glove from the floor, slipping it on before she walked over to him and grabbed him by the arm. "C'mon, bub, let's get you home."

"I don't have a home," Saddiq said glumly, allowing Rogue to lift him to his feet. He didn't look very steady. "I am the property of the Rajan Royal Palace; I exist at their sufferance."

"No you don't." She put an arm beneath his shoulders, keeping him propped up and helping him along.

"Yes I do. I was never a kid either. I've never even had a sundae." Great, he was a self-pity drunk. Still, better than mean and belligerent.

"As soon as you heal up, I'll take you to Baskin-Robbins," Rogue promised him, sounding like Logan once more. It wasn't the voice, which was clearly hers, just something in the choice of words, in the casual delivery, the tone. It seemed more paternal than patronizing. She'd just absorbed Titan, so why was she still Logan? Or was she both, and Logan's personality - with hers - had simply overwhelmed Titan?

A man stumbled out of the room where Titan and Saddiq had come fighting out of, a guy who looked like a rumpled CPA. Was this "First"? He looked at them bleary eyed, and asked, "So, uh, who are you people?"

Brendan leveled the heavy weapon at him with what he hoped was an appropriately grim look. "The bad guys. Want to make something of it?"

He just stared for a moment, uncomprehendingly, and then gestured vaguely behind him, making himself stumble. " 'm just gonna go, 'kay?"

Brendan nodded. "Get a move on."

The man gave him a half assed salute, then tottered off, occasionally leaning against the wall so he didn't fall over. Distantly, he could hear two soldiers arguing violently over who a stripper named Meringue liked better.

"I've never even had a birthday party," Saddiq continued, unconcerned by all of this. "I don't know what my birthday is even. I only know the year.

Where are we going?"

"Xavier's."

"Why? Nobody likes me there. The kids are afraid of me."

"Not all of them," Kitty piped up, then paused awkwardly. Brendan hadn't been at the school for a while, but even he knew that was a lie. Of course they were all a bit afraid of him; Saddiq seemed to have no obvious emotions, and he wasn't afraid of _anything_. People like that were just naturally freaky. "Well, okay, some. But you should just ignore them, Sid. Some of them are just jealous. They'd love to be able to take care of themselves like you can." Brendan had a sneaking suspicion Kitty was talking about herself, but he kept his mouth shut.

"Pete, can you make sure we have a clear path outta here?" Rogue asked.

Piotr nodded, and went on ahead of them to make sure no belligerent drunken soldiers tried to make a scene. It was terribly unlikely, especially since they'd encountered so few since they broke in, and those that they had met were worse than useless. He had to hand it to Rags - when he promised a debilitating drunk spell, he meant it.

"If it's any consolation, I - I mean, Logan - doesn't know his birthday either," Rogue said to Saddiq, who was now bleeding on her a bit. "He doesn't even know the year. Maybe we'll have to think up a joint birthday for the both of you. What day sounds good to you?"

"Muslim calendar or Gregorian?"

Rogue sighed impatiently. "No being a smart ass 'til yer sober."

It wasn't going to go down as the rescue of the century, but Brendan thought they'd done remarkably well for themselves considering they weren't even the "X-Men" B team. Maybe this would change that, though.

If Scott or Xavier ever recovered enough to hear about it. Damn, it was always something, wasn't it?

13

The portal spit them out into what looked like a Roman courtyard made of gold veined black marble, a huge building rising up in front of them, with a dozen slick stairs and huge, thick pillars that were covered with what looked like screaming faces and blindly grasping arms. The sky was a type of ocean blue, a type a little too high saturation to be an actual earthly color.

In the center of the courtyard was a black marble, eight tiered marble fountain, with what looked like molten gold spitting up from the center and spilling down the sides, making a soft noise that was not quite liquid. It was better than blood, but it still seemed obnoxious.

Jean looked around, puzzled and impressed, and asked, "Whose realm is this?"

"Eris, you piece of mongrel trash," a stentorian female voice replied. "What are you doing bringing refuse to my realm, Bob?"

Eris had appeared on the center of the steps, wearing a sapphire toga that flowed over and clung to her body like water. She had changed her appearance slightly from the last time he'd spoken to her, she was now half brown skinned and half gold skinned, bifurcated perfectly down the middle like that guy in that heavy handed Star Trek episode. But Eris's true physical form - when she bothered to have one - was patchwork, calico humanoid, as she was sprung from the energy well of two very different gods. That was also why she was so powerful: in her, the contradictions worked. Her eyes were still nothing but a dark, emotionless well of stars.

"Trash?" Jean exclaimed hotly. "Who are you cal -" Eris waved a dismissive hand at her, and Jean instantly dropped to her knees, grabbing her head and making a low, keening noise of pain.

"You do not speak to me, lesser. Now, Bob, you have five seconds to tell me why you're polluting my realm with this, or I kill you both."

In an ever changing universe, it was heartening to know that the goddess of discord never changed at all.


	10. Part 10

"Camaxtli's back," he told her, figuring being to the point would shock the hell out of her.

It did. She stopped slowly blowing up Jean's head to glare at him - or as much as she could actually glare without proper eyes. "No he is not. Things I kill stay dead."

"He had an avatar. And, on top of that, Osiris brought back his old one, Xiuhcoatl, to cause trouble and use his power to burn shit. Considering you killed Cammy, I imagine he's working his way towards you, as soon as he gets enough powerful gods capable of defeating you."

For a moment she just stood there, the oddest statue ever erected by any being. She radiated arrogance like the sun gave off heat, and he knew he had offended her on several different levels. Finally, she said, "That isn't happening." With a single violent wave of her hand, Xiuh appeared in all his emaciated, serpentine glory some four meters from them. He looked around violently, instantly disoriented, but when his big eyes landed on Eris, he hissed and stepped forward … and froze. Eris was more powerful than Cammy, and she was more powerful than him; it wasn't even a contest.

"You wished to die, did you not, you pathetic wretch? Have your wish," she said, the stars in her black eyes flaring into supernovas.

Jean had tried to move, attack Xiuh while his back was to her, but she couldn't move either. She was obviously unaware of the invisible barricade Eris had thrown around them. Bob knew this might be suicide for every single one of them, depending on how pissed off Eris was, but he hadn't seen a way to avoid the potential suicide, not if he wanted to screw Cammy out of what he wanted one last time. "All my bones are laughing," he sang under his breath. "As you're dancing on my grave."

Xiuh had the time to issue an ear piercing shriek, like a drill hitting metal too thick for the bit, and then simply ceased to be. It looked like he explosively dissembled into bright fragments of molecules, a brief collection of energetic confetti that dispersed on a mysterious wind.

Jean grunted, a noise of pain at the sudden influx of returning energy, and grabbed her head once more, this time for a different reason. Bob felt the barrier fall, but when he looked at Eris, he couldn't read her expression at all. Or see it coming.

Jean just disappeared. Eris vaguely waved her hand, and Jean dropped out of the dimension as if she'd never been there at all. It was too fast for him to even catch a glimpse of the energy signature. "What did you do?" He asked, trying to keep anything that might be any accusation out of his voice. She wouldn't like it.

"Sent her to one of the nether realms. She hated you too much to kill. And just think how much she'll hate you after that."

The "nether realms" were some lower universes, where troublesome or inconvenient gods were sent to stew and fight amongst themselves, and breaking out was nearly impossible. It was like a godly "Thunderdome", and as a mere avatar, Jean wouldn't have an easy time of it. She would probably survive - no one actually died there permanently - and it was possible she could get out eventually, but thanks to time dilations, it would be decades, maybe even centuries for her, although it wouldn't be that long on the Earthly realm. She would be pissed; she would also be that much more deadly, battle hardened and tested. "So it's a two- fer: punishment for her, and punishment for me as well."

"You deserve it for annoying me. You have tested my patience far too much. Speaking of which …" Eris didn't do anything, not even twitch, but a startled Osiris appeared, several meters away from the base of the steps. And even though she didn't move, there was no transition, she was suddenly standing right in front of the befuddled Sy. He was able to spit a single word: "What -"

She grabbed his head, and his big bird eyes widened in fear. Being touched by Eris was never a good thing. "Camaxtli is dead, and he and his people stay dead. Further insubordination will not be tolerated."

He never got a chance to say anything further. His head exploded between her hands like she was crushing a raw egg, gore and ichor splattering the courtyard but somehow missing her, even as his body collapsed to the ground like an empty suit. She hadn't dispersed him, just eradicated this form, and he would be back in his death realm soon enough. But he'd know why he should never piss off Eris ever again.

In less than time it took for an eye to blink, Eris was right in front of him, grabbing his chin in a vise grip. He could feel her fingers burning through his skin like hot irons, the bones beneath becoming as malleable as clay. "Do you get the point, Bob, or do you need further instruction?"

"I get it," he growled, as that was the only way he could talk. Gobs of his flesh were melting off and hitting the marble with a sizzling sound, like bacon on a skillet. The stink of his own baking flesh was nauseating, but he knew he was getting off lucky - his head hadn't been cracked yet.

Still, he could feel her fingers in his very jaw bones, bending them into a brand new, uncomfortable shape. The stars in her eyes were almost blindingly bright. "Good. Do not bring your dirty work to me ever again, or the Powers will find out exactly how much I can do to them, and you."

Once again, there was little transition. One second he was standing there, Eris digging her fingers into his marrow, and the next instant he was falling through the sky. It was like a dream, only a lot less pleasant. Also, he seemed to have his pants on.

He hit the water at a force that was jarring; it was like being thrown into a brick wall, and if physicality meant that much to him, he would probably have pulped organs and broken bones to show for it. As it was, he wasn't perfectly corporeal yet, so while he felt it, it was only distantly. Mostly what he felt was the cold - the water was freezing.

"Oh god damn it!" He shouted as he surfaced, shaking his water soaked head. He was floating in cold gray water that seemed to extend for miles in all directions. It was the Earth plane all right, and he treaded water for a moment as he got his bearings. Atlantic Ocean? Most likely. Now he had to make a choice: where to go first. In the end, he had to go by need, and the person who was on death's door would always take priority.

He thought himself back to California.

Los Angeles General had a brand spanking new "mutant" ward, thanks in no small part to his ex-wife Lilly, who had ponied up the dough for that specific wing. Okay, so he asked her to, but she was agreeable to it enough; as a full blooded Belial, she knew mutants could only cause trouble with normal Humans, and this gave her a happy. All mischief gave Lilly a happy, which was one of the more exciting - and frustrating - things about their marriage. Belials were the most slippery of demon species, and certainly the most dangerous for it, simply because the only thing you could trust was that they were, at all times, completely full of shit. He knew this was why the Powers initially imprisoned him in a Belial body.

He walked through the azure and white tiled high security wing, earning attention from a passing orderly. "Tell me where Scott Summers is," he ordered. Not a request.

The man, a six foot two bruiser who you might have mistaken for a boxer (but was actually working his way through nursing school), stared right through him as his will bent to his cause. "Down the hall, fourth door on your left, burn unit."

"Thank you. I'm not, nor was I ever, here."

The man continued with his rounds, no longer aware of him in any respect. He made sure a passing doctor and two nurses didn't notice him either, and he made sure to dry up and not leave puddles of sea water in the halls.

He was still alive, which was something, but Bob knew the instant he walked in his room that it was a near thing. The mutants all got separate rooms, unlike their normal Human counterparts, but that was only because some mutations could interact with others in unforeseen ways, and no one wanted to risk it. And his room smelled like burned flesh and antiseptic salve.

He was laid out on his white bed, angry red skin covered in salve, fresh grafts, and gauze stained with blood and other fluids (it was probably close to bandage changing time). About half his hair was missing, flash burned off, but he still had his visor on. Good old Brendan, he probably made sure they had it and knew what it was for; there was an unmistakable lingering trace of Brachen still in the room. You had to love Brachens, they generally meant so well. And that generally got them killed, which is why they preferred hiding. It was one of those ironies of evolution that the less friendly and helpful a demon race was, the more likely they were to thrive.

Scott was on a respirator that made mechanical hissings sounds, not unlike a smaller and less reverb-ed Darth Vader. Bob didn't detect a hint of consciousness, which was good, because if he was conscious he'd be in hideous pain. "Listen to me," he said, once again making it an order. "You will sleep for twenty four hours, and during that time you will completely recover, and wake up perfectly fine. You are not hurt, you're not in pain ... you have all your hair too." Well, he had to give him that, otherwise he'd look like he had the mange. "You will remember what happened ... but you won't remember Jean was there. The real Jean wouldn't hurt you or abandon you to die."

That was true. The only problem was he wasn't sure where the real Jean was anymore, and that was a decision he came to long before Eris had marooned her in the nether realms.

Sure he had done what he could here, he opened a portal, and slipped over to Dublin.

He stepped out of an alley next to O'Connor's Pub, and the sky was overcast, sending down a fine sprinkling of gentle rain. With a thought, he changed his shirt to read _'Kiss Me, I'm Agnostic'_, and gave himself a nice fedora, as he always fancied a nice one.

The spells were all in place, he could feel their shiny happy glow before he walked in the door, but he sensed trouble. He knew it too well to ever mistake it for anything else, even in the presence of all these "good time" vibes.

The pub was packed - another result of the spell - and a hale and hearty looking Angel glanced his way as soon as the brass chimes over the door rang in his entrance. "I'm not here," he announced, and Angel looked right through him, giving the door a curious look. No one in the pub saw him, so he had to weave a bit to avoid being jostled ... and there was the trouble skulking at a rear table, as hidden from general view as possible. He had a magical aura that was almost incandescent, as if he wasn't just a magic practitioner but an actual being of magic. And that's when he knew instantly who this was.

Mordred looked up from the pint he was pretending to nurse, and looked around, his brow furrowed in consternation. He knew something powerfully mystical was here, but he also knew he couldn't see it. Bob got close enough to touch him, then said, "You can see me." As soon as Mordred looked up, startled, Bob touched him on the shoulder and teleported them both outside, into the alley next to the pub. Before he could recover from the shock of being instantly moved elsewhere, Bob told him, "No powers."

That was risky on a being that was literally a child of magic; he couldn't keep him powerless for long, or it would actually cause him physical damage. As it was, Mordred staggered, putting a hand to his forehead. "What the fuck …?"

"Don't talk, just listen, and I'll restore you quicker, okay?"

"Who the fuck are you, and what have you done to me?" He roared, holding on to the wall and his head with equal strength.

"I'm Bob, and you need to leave Angel the hell alone. If you don't, I'll wipe your memory of him and plop you back in France - and for a kind like you, that's gonna hurt." It would. To wipe his memory would be a bit of a more laborious - and painful - process, but he'd do it if he had to.

Mordred glared at him, his eyes a pale sky blue that somehow seemed translucent. "Bob? What … wait, Maximum Bob? The King of all liar demons?"

He shrugged sheepishly. "That is the rep, yeah."

"So you're in on this?" He scoffed and shook his head, like he should have known it. "So this was for kicks? Getting your friends to bring a monster like Angelus back into full humanity -"

"Ooh, you're one to call Angelus a monster, aren't you, _Mordred_?"

That hit home. He scowled violently, the irises of his eyes showing little sparkles of crystals. "I've changed."

"And so has he. That is not Angelus, you idiot, it's Liam, the poor sucker who ended up a vamp snack. He doesn't remember his life as a vampire, and he won't, not for the next three months."

Mordred looked both suspicious and slightly unbalanced, and he never let go of his head. "What do you mean not for the next three months?"

"This is a vacation. He doesn't know it - and he's not gonna know it, get it? - but the Powers decided to give him a taste of what he's fighting for. He has three months to live his life as a Human, and then he's going to wake up in Los Angeles, a vampire with a soul again, with his last actual memory being his killing of a Senior Partner. But he will have a feeling of what he's missing, the goal he's aiming for, and hopefully that will give him a renewed sense of purpose in his fight, even though he's back where he started, with no friends, no plan, and no idea what to do next. And quite possibly some really pissed off Senior Partners sniffing after him." It was true. He couldn't convince the Powers to make his change to Human permanent; they felt he had more he needed to do to atone for what he had done, and frankly, although they didn't admit it, they needed Angel. He was the best champion they'd ever had. How do you bench your best player? But they had to do something - if they hadn't transformed Angel back into Human, he would have died on that hell plane.

Bob was frankly glad that Angel wouldn't remember the actual fact of having lived as a Human for three months, because he would be so disappointed that it was just a side trip. And he'd probably blame him for not being able to keep him Human. Bob wouldn't actually blame him for that either.

Mordred stared at him for a long moment, not daring to trust him. It was raining harder now, splashing them both, although Bob's nifty new fedora spared him the worst of it. "So you're saying this is a punishment? He gets a life, and then they yank it away from him?"

"Well … see, when you put it that way, it sounds horrible …"

"Why should I believe you? Belials are full of shit."

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Oh please! An old Belial could keep someone from seeing them, but could he teleport you out of a pub? Could he take away all your powers? Think, mate. Do you get a whiff of spell based magic offa me?"

Mordred had to think about it a while, and Bob watched the expression on his face move from incredulousness and disbelief to perfect shock and sudden enlightenment. "You're not just a Belial, are you?"

"No, I am not. And I fought for Angel, and I lost, so all I can do is protect him and make his life, while he has it, as enjoyable as possible. Now bugger off and leave him be, or I'll remove all your powers and make you think you're a shoe salesman in Yorkshire." He waved his hand, and Mordred disappeared. He would reappear on the upper level of the Eiffel Tower, probably startling several tourists and destined to end up in more than a handful of stranger's vacation photos. But Bob hoped that would be enough to convince him to leave Angel alone.

With a sigh, Bob decided he should hang around for a couple of days, just to make sure he didn't try anything, and just maybe shore up the protection spells around Angel and his place. He couldn't make him Human forever, but he could give him a good time while he was around.

It was the absolute least he could do, as well as the only thing he could do.

14

This was always the most awkward part.

Logan was in a separate room in the medical unit, mainly because he wasn't really getting better at all. He looked strangely at home in the cold steel room, even with the white sheet and blue blanket pulled up to his shoulders, and while he didn't look pale, he didn't look perfectly alive either. When you got within several feet, you could start counting the individual whiskers of stubble on his face; they seemed unbelievably dark against his ashen skin.

Rogue crossed the room and put the cds she brought down on the counter beside the portable player. Helga had done this for Bob when he was in a coma, on the off chance that he could hear, and she had decided to do the same thing, as she had nothing to lose. Yesterday she had started playing the cds she'd found hidden in his room (they were not hidden to her, not when she still had access to his memories), and there were only a couple more left. She'd brought some of hers, the ones she thought Logan could tolerate, and some others she had scared up from the kids. She actually liked having the music, as it gave her a reason for being down here beyond simple voyeurism.

"Okay, I don't know what's on this one, but I don't want you to tell me," she said, loading up a cd that Helga had burned for him. "Oh, and Scott's back. He seems perfectly fine; his recovery was miraculous. He thinks maybe Jean did it, but … man, I couldn't believe what I thought when he first said that. I thought we can't trust her, and she wouldn't help you. That was your thoughts, I know, but I couldn't quite believe it. But you really don't trust her anymore, do you? You know she's changed, more than the rest of us."

She hit the "play" button and pulled herself up on the empty section of the counter, as there were no chairs down here. Eerie sounding music started coming from the speakers, and Logan's memory told her this was Tool's cover of "No Quarter", which meant next to nothing to her - it was a cover of what now? "I think you're starting to fade a bit. From me. A little. I managed to go three hours without cursing yesterday. Course, I was by myself in the gym for half that time, but it still counts. I'm hoping I can learn enough cool fighting shit that I can keep it when your memories fades. I've been sparring a little with some of the other kids, and I'm like totally kicking their asses without using my power. Even I don't know how half the time. I'm also learning how to take a punch, which I was afraid of before, but I've learned that a little pain is worth if it you can get a bigger benefit outta it. Scott told me that was just sick, but it has some tactical benefits. Well, as long as I can heal from the damage."

She kicked her legs idly, as the music swelled from eerie low key to angry raging, which explained why this would remind Helga of him. "Oh, anyways, I told Scott I thought it was Bob, Bob was there when the motel exploded, after all, but he claims not to know. Frankly, I think he wants to believe it was Jean, even though he knows it's unlikely. He isn't ready to let her go. I've left a message with Hel, but Bob hasn't checked in with her yet. As soon as he does, she promised me she'd send him our way. She's still kinda sweet on you, but I guess that's mutual, huh?"

It was so weird being him and being herself at the same time. You'd think it would get less weird as time went on, but it never did. "The Professor's recovering really well; we think he'll be conscious any time now. Rags was able to contact this friend he has - well, a friend of a friend, I guess - who threw a healing spell on Saddiq, so he recovered from his Titan ass kicking, but we've kept him in an induced coma ever since. We're still trying to figure out some way to get that thing outta him, Rags' friend is trying to cook up a spell, but we'll probably have to wait for Bob. I hope he hurries up. You could use him too."

She shivered, as it was cold down here, which didn't make sense to her. Shouldn't it be warmer for sick people? Scott said there was some reason behind it, but as soon as the explanation veered into its second minute, she stopped paying attention. The machines monitoring Logan's vital signs made small, weak noises, drowned out by the music, but also just so pathetic it was better to drown them out. "You should be getting better, but you're not. Piotr thinks maybe you just got overtaxed this time, it was too much, but I'm thinkin' you don't wanna get better. Are you still kickin' yourself over takin' us on a Organization revenge mission? Stop it. I wanted to go - do you know how fucking _bored I _get here? They treat me like a regular kid, but I'm not. I may have forgotten most things, but I glimpsed Magneto's mind, I've glimpsed yours several times, a Ressik demon's, Pyro's, now Xavier's and Titan's … I know stuff that my friends just can't know. I've lived lifetimes in a millisecond. I know stuff sometimes without knowing how I know it - kinda like you. I'm not like the others, but I'm not sure who I'm like. Anyways, I know Saddiq feels the same way; he was indoctrinated, he spent his whole life being groomed for a single purpose that's now irrelevant. We may all be mutants, but even we don't quite fit in here, no matter what the Professor and Scott say." If anyone could understand that, it would be Logan, who felt like he didn't belong here either. But then again, Logan questioned whether he belonged in this world at all. Of course he never said that, but she'd been living with his mind long enough to know.

"So I had this dream last night. I thought it was a dream, now I'm pretty sure it's not, but either way it's yours. I was you, and I was on a really high floor of an office building. It had those mirrored windows, y'know, so you could look down on everything, and I was in this city of skyscrapers, some of them shaped like broken swords. I'd never seen this place before, but I knew from you we were in Tokyo. You were escorting this woman down the hall. She was wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase, and she was bitching at you. Apparently there was a credible bomb threat, and you were evacuating the building, but you came up to personally escort her out, and she was upset with you because that was a breach of protocol; her Uncle was the senior man, so you should be escorting him out first, not leaving him to your subordinates. But as soon as you guys get in the elevator, you hug her, just take her in your arms and tell her you don't give a damn about protocol, you couldn't live if she got hurt." She paused to wipe away the tears forming in her eyes. She was pretty sure that was Logan's mental reaction, not hers, but honestly she wasn't sure. There was no way for her to get into words how powerful his feelings were for her, for his wife Mariko; she'd never felt anything like it, and doubted she ever would again. It convinced her her relationship with Bobby would go nowhere, because she didn't even feel a sliver of that for him. Lust, yes, but love? If that was love, she'd barely ever felt it. "Mariko. That's her name, isn't it? She relaxed against you, and called you, somewhat jokingly, her hero. She wasn't really angry at you, just afraid you'd get into trouble for breaking the rules and protecting her over him. And you didn't care. You were always gonna pick her over them, 'cause she was the only one in the family that you thought was worth anything. You also thought - still do think - that she was the only woman who could ever accept and love a freak like you. You would have died for her, and I think that's the problem. I think you did, and I don't think you've ever come back. I know she's dead, and I know you think it's your fault, that you weren't good enough to protect her, to save her, that you failed the only person you ever loved. And now you think you've failed all of us." She swallowed hard, and was torn between feeling absolutely horrible for him, and absolutely furious at him. "You're wrong, you self-pitying bastard. The only thing you've failed to live up to is this insanely high standard you've set for yourself. Being nearly invulnerable doesn't make you perfect, and nobody here expects you to protect all of us. We can take care of our fucking selves, okay? Yer not the only guy around here who can fight, you just think you are."

She sniffed and glanced at the machine readouts, hoping some of this had sunk in, and maybe pissed him off. If she could piss him off, she knew he'd wake up. But the readouts remained steady, and there was no outward sign he had heard her at all. "Come on, old man, wake up," she said, trying to make it more of an order than a plea, but she wasn't sure she had succeeded.

Logan just laid there on the table, his chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly beneath the blanket, and she wondered if anything would encourage him to wake up on his own.

* * *

The End

(For now …)


End file.
